Ravenous Destruction

People often ask me what bands I listen to. It seems like a simple enough question. Really it is and I do enjoy talking about music, especially metal. However being the shy socially awkward metalhead that I have trouble answering that question… in fact I dread it. There I am at a show or a party or something and someone tries to attempt a conversation with me by asking what bands I like. I try my best to answer but I can’t name name a single band I like. Not one. My mind is a vast empty space. Umm I don’t know….I think real hard. Fuck. I don’t know. I listen to music every day. I have hundreds of tapes and cds. I collect records. I go to shows and festivals every chance I get… but no… I can’t think of single band I like. Eventually a band jumps into my mind, it falls right from my lips and it’s always a band that sux. A band I don’t like. Then I’m stuck taking about some band I don’t even like to someone who at this point thinks I listen to bands that suck. I think I need to take along some neatly written notes on little index cards next time I’m out.

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Tonight I went out and bought 35mm film. I haven’t bought 35mm film in nearly a decade. I threw it in my old ten dollar camera. Replaced the old batteries with ones I found in my Walkman and a Tinkerbell lantern. Then I took a few accidental pictures trying to figure out if it still works. It seams to work but I won’t know for sure until I develop the film. I used up half The film. 24 exposures. I must choose my pictures wisely. This camera, it rattles when I shake it. Sometimes. I got it in 1997 or thereabouts. It’s been everywhere with me. Across the country with me once maybe twice. I brought along with me to Sweden. Noway. The Netherlands. Ireland. The picture above was taken in Ireland about 11 years ago. I like the special quality of this picture. This camera take special pictures. beautiful pictures. Real pictures. A tangible memory trapped in a box and then sealed onto paper. When I steal someone’s soul I want to be able to hold it in my hand.

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Skid Row to Skyward
from here I can see only sky

pen | colored pencil | dictionary

Started a new art project…kinda. My monkey loves to destroy everything, including my books. Many of my possessions bare the mark of her destructive art talents. I try to keep them hidden in milk crates or in high up places but she still manages to find them. So I figured why not do the same. So I took my little red dictionary and got to work. This page is all I’ve done so far and I would like to keep going and see how many pages I can I can fill up with my sketchy drawings.

After I started working on this I realized this was not the first time I’ve done something like this. Many years ago, back in the reckless days of my youth, I did something similar. I was was in a hotel room in Texas tripping out and had the brilliant idea that I was gonna take the hotel room bible and fill it with art and it would be called ‘Art Bible.’ Needless to say despite my best efforts I was unable to fill every page with my art that night. I took the bible with me and left a note to the hotel staff saying that I was sorry for stealing their bible but it had to be done because that bible was meant to be an ‘Art Bible.’ I knew they would understand. I had every good intention of finishing what I started but I have no idea what happened to that bible.

Many of my designs for the things I sell online also have this theme. I like to take vintage images from books and lay them over blocks of text. This is all done digitally and with vintage royalty free images. So this here is a bit different.

I like the concept of this first drawing. The color, form and shading came out better then I expected…Although the scan did not do the shading much justice. I’m unhappy with with my line drawing skills here. I wish I had done a better job outlining the tree. I also wish it didn’t come out slightly sideways. Of course if this was an oil painting it would have come out perfect…but who has time for that ancient art form. While I was flipping though my dictionary looking for a page to begin with this page jumped right out at me. I like the words. I like the words a lot.

Well there it is… I guess I haven’t got much more to say about this. Forgive me if I’m a bit long winded when speaking about my art. It just something I picked up while studying art in college where speaking endlessly about such things is a requirement and never an option. Feel free to tell me what you think. Constructive criticism is welcome. This will available to buy soon in my Zazzle shop.

“Every act of creation is first of all an act of destruction.” ~ Pablo Picasso

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If there is such a thing as heaven and hell, to which I can not verify as I feel this reality is questionable at best, then this must purgatory. A tricky bend in the universe where debts are settled, retribution is paid, lovers are reunited, and both angels and demons walk with us. I think for sure I have seen both and have had the misfortune of befriending the latter more often then most do.

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I rolled Winter’s stroller, that she is much to big for, up onto the wet pavement on front of her preschool. I noticed that really tall man getting into his car after dropping off his son. He smiled and said hello and then he told me I was his hero. Why? Because I walk my daughter to school everyday no matter what the weather. I do, no matter how cold, how rainy or uncomfortably hot. I walk her where we need to go. Everyday.

I know most folks feel sorry for me especially when they see me pushing her stroller over snowbanks or walking with her on my hip the whole way. They should not feel sorry for me. For it is I who feels sorry for them. They are trapped in their cars. Rushing by and cut off from the world and nature around them. While on their journey they never see the falling snow collect on the tree branches and each little snowflake as it hits the ground. They miss out on the little creatures who walk across the blades of grass. They miss each falling leaf in the Autumn and the crazy long shadows cast by the hot summer sun. They miss all the little things that can not be seen from the window of a car.

They drive by in their big cars and think Oh that poor woman and I see them drive by wonder how much of the world they miss. This crazy world we built for our convince shuts out the life around us. Well, that is how I see it anyways, but I’m just a tree hugging hippy who, like Julia Hill, feels the simple act of wearing shoes disconnects us from the earth.

If you have managed to read this far, I ask that you ditch the car just for one day and discover what you’ve been missing. There is a nice little world out there and always something intriguing to look this time of year.

A few days ago just before waking up I had a strange dream. In my basement was a crow and a black cat fighting. One of them dies and the other tries to eat it. I’m not sure which one died. I think maybe the crow, it was a few days ago and a dream, they are difficult to remember sometimes.

Not long after I woke up, I went outside for a minute and there was a dead bird. A cute little bird, still looking quite alive. Not smashed up or flatted or anything. He was a tiny fluffy little bird. With cute orange bird feet. I was wondering about what may have killed him, when my neighbor came outside. I could tell she felt bad for the little bird. He was lying there in the snow covered driveway. I thought it was strange to see a bird in the winter. She said she hears the on the way to work in the morning. She pick picked up a shovel and moved to the backyard. I don’t know where in the back yard, but I’m sure my daughter will find him next time she is outside playing.

The dream was strange enough, but then the bird.
And I ‘ve been thinking about that ever since.

I think I may have to move at some point and much sooner than I had planed. I hate to move. In all the years I lived I never stayed in one place for more then 4 years. I move a lot. Now again. Just don’t want too. I don’t mind be nomadic, but this is way too much.

So I’m walking down the street with a basket of laundry and I see a line of people waiting to buy tickets to a show. [Emperor I think] So I get in line because hey I wanna go to. Then I realize I’ve already got a ticket so why am I waiting in line. The line is for people without tickets. Next thing I know I’m standing outside the venue and there is my friend Sarah smoking a cigarette. So I go hang out with her a bit. I have tickets for tomorrow nights show not tonights but I figure since there’s always people hanging outside smoking I’ll just hangout with everyone for a bit. I take the clothes to the laundromat and just leave them there, I don’t even put them in the washing machine. I head back to the venue and hangout with some friends for a bit. A while later I head back to the laundromat only when I get there I realize that it’s not a laundromat it’s a bar and my laundry basket is empty someone has stolen the clothes. Then I look up and see this couple sitting at a table with some of my laundry, All Winter’s little clothes. I begin to fold the clothes while screaming at them for stealing my laundry. I say to them What kind of person steals laundry. And out of nowhere the guy is holding up my daughter and says What kind of person leaves a baby in a bar.
I was horrified I didn’t know my baby was in the laundry basket when I left it there. I start bargaining with the people I tell them to keep the laundry I just want my baby back. And then it’s over and I’m awake and I feel like the worst mother ever.

…Early this morning shortly after I had fallen asleep I had a dream that I was posting in my live journal and I remember thinking; Layla, you need to remember what your writing so you can post this in your lj when you wake up. And then I woke up but I didn’t remember the dream at all. I remember it now of course, but not all of it. Not the important part that I needed to.
Dreams do come true , but not in the way we expect them to

…Last Monday I bought a bag of blue corn chips and they become lost in the vast open of Dan’s truck. Today they were found. I heard the good news when Dan came home from work but was upset to learn that his car was 12 minutes away in Newton for the night.
I may never see my blue corn chips again

…Ever since I moved back from New Hampshire I wanted to move back to New Hampshire …Pavement disgust me, I want only to be surrounded by trees… I found out tonight we may be moving to back there, to… Manchester. There are NO fucking trees in Manchester, it is the only place, I know of, in NH with NO fucking vegetation. Nevertheless I’m still excited to be leaving Haverhill, I here this new place has heat, I can’t wait go.
Careful what you wish for

I was standing in line at the Everywhere Mart, I saw the tackiest display of unneeded trinkets and other objects of mass production. It reminded me of what my adviser told once us about art, mass production and the end of every civilization. The end is near.