~SeelederSchar

Hey there!
After some heavy poundering as to the deeper meanings of Miller's "The Crucible" last time, let's go for two sweets this time.

First of all, it has come to my knowledge that the majority of the limited print run of the full color version poster of the said play has been lifted from the walls ... not by personnel, but by people adoring them and wanting to have'em at home.
Well, with so much discussions about art theft going on here on dA so often, I just have to say: Now that's one that's a compliment.
Especially since it happend after the performances were through

On a completely different side of the field: Artbook. Me. In the works.
Those attending to this gallery thoroughly and frequently will know most of the stuff, but it's more a gift for those that constantly keep my muse and spirit up and like to, well, own my artwork, hardcopy-wise.
I'll spill beans about the details as times goes by, but it'll happen this summer, won't be too expensive and, supposedly, have it's own ISBN, so even orders from outside this country should be within the boundaries of 'can be done'.
The thing will be titled "Seelenbilder", which is "soul images", roughly spoken, and will contain some witty remarks, some very (nearly over-) sophisticated musings and, of course, lot's of pictures.

But as I said, details shall follow another time.


For now, my break is over and after helping a friend move her stuff into a new appartment I'll now be off, preparing myself for a birthday party, followed by a LARP tavern.

Keep deviating, and God bless


Your's,
Thomas

Hey there, I just thought I'd give you a short update on all things going on around here.
Last week, from Thursday to Sunday, our theatre group Actor's Nausea, you know, those guys I do so much poster work for, performed their new play. Arthur Miller's "The Crucible" is certainly a classic for all Americans out there, but it's somewhat special over here, I think. There are people that read it in school, some more know the movie (although they might do so and not know it, since the German title is no actual translation, since "Hexenjagd" means "witch hunt"), but all in all, I think many just do not know it.
And I have to say, I really learned to like, to actually love the play. I did like it before, in general, but over the last months of rehearsels, discussions, poster work, designs and all, I found so many levels in Miller's text.

It's about Christian believes gone fanatic, of course. It deals with McCarthyism in it's cruelest form - are you now or have you ever been in compact with the devil, so to speak. It's about morals, and I do not think, like a friend of mine, American moral believes in particular.
It's also about love and about forgiveness, and about the difficulty to actually forgive and live forgiving, in charity, even if your head might want to, generally.
There is a question towards the end - "What is John Proctor" - and beyond the meta-answer that shall be given here for those not knowing the play, Proctor is the protagonist of the story, it is also the question what they are exactly struggling for within the story. For honesty, for bravery, and for justice.
It's a story that shows a man that finally can fight his inner demons and finds his own good again and that wins so much in doing so that his fatal end seems like a moral win, nevertheless.

The real backgrounds of the play are a bit different, given the fact that Proctor was a 60+ years old guy that shared a bed, well, shed, with his 12 years old maid, but Miller used the material and created something that certainly outgrew that rather grim beginning of a dark, yet small chapter of history.

The play, that to say in the end, though, entertained us behind the curtain as well, having some lines that really took some skill for our actors to deliver without knocking the audience off their chairs laughing.
Lines like "Where's my wood.", "I've head no breakfast" (last lines before hanging), "The Putnam seed have peopled this province" (eugh!), "I think it be the cows, sir.", "Gah!" and suchlike really made it hard, but they got it.
The performances were big successes without exception, we had real tears on stage and in the audience and I am proud, really, really proud that I was part of this production.

And I am looking forward to the next play and, although it was really tough, even to the next hell week of performances.


Greetings,
Thomas

Just some short images that rushed through my head in the last few days:
The girl in the princess costume, sitting in front of the ball, the plastic scepter broken and the dress ruined.
The parent, that realizes that his child rather wants to hang with his/her friends then with his/her "old man".
The child that learns that his family isn't as good and free of guilt as he thought.
The nerd being harassed by his classmates because he wears his slightly silly, but beloved favorite t-shirt.
The kid at the grave of his or her first pet.

They all lost something they'll never get back ... and yet, can loose again and again and again.
They lost a piece of their naive way to look at the world.
May you keep your's forever.


Greetings,
Thomas

PS: And no, all's fine with me, 'sides the sultry heat in Aachen and way too many things to do in way too few days. No loss on my side since a pretty big one in Spring.

Good day to you, dear readers and viewers of mine

It's been some weeks again and I thought it might be the right time today to give you a little update on the things going on in and around my life...

Centerpiece of my latest past has been another LARP, this time just as a guest, not as part of the organizing folks. Lots of people there I didn't know, few I did know and one, Julia, travelling with me ... and I can tell you, it's been a really nice and good experience. And tough.
It's been more or less three days of running, sneaking, fighting, running, more running, more fighting, shouting, screaming, getting hit and hitting myself, more shouting ... well, you get the idea.
And so, I came home with wounded knees, capital bruises of dish-like proportions and a sprained thumb ... and a really good and satisfied feeling within me.

It's kinda odd, I have to admit, but this state of being in which you seem to be able to feel every step you did on the weekend in every part your body has ... it's so good!
Might be tied to my usual day-to-day doings, lot's of desk- and desktop-work for example, writing and such. Might be that I kind of need this vent to get unused energy out and just move a bit again. I can't deny that I really like, well, love to run through the woods in general, but this can't be it, not completely.
There really is some satisfaction in wrecking yourself for something that brings fun to you. A friend of mine once told me that you tell how good a LARP was by counting your bruises afterwards, granting extra points for those you cannot even account for.
I'm starting to agree there.
It's a good thing to just give out all you have. Julia and I, we played a young couple from a servant caste at some point of it, got caught by our masters with a loving "Into the dust, infidels!" and got executed in front of all the players present. And it just was good, was fun, to shout and scream, to throw myself at the feet of my 'masters' and die anyway, getting strong emotional reactions from those around me.
It's a satisfying feeling to see that, obviously, we were able to believably portray humans in this extremest of situations. And not just on screen, on film, but embedded, convincing those around us in direct, non-stop improvised interaction.

Also, it's fun to shout fictious religiously-fanatic phrases to so-called non-believers, but we've talked about the fascination of that before.
Anyway: "Unity and strength in the name of the five!"

All in all, it seems to end in "extrems are fun".
And that, again, is something many artists seem to have found out before me. Which is interesting to think about, but doesn't even change the impact this weekend had on me, yet again.

And having said all that, I think I will devote my next journal entry to the nonsense that happens backstage on such a LARP, before anybody gets to worried and thinks about calling the shrinks in on me

As for my own artwork, well, there's more to follow. My thumb is following my orders again, more or less, so I might even be able to do so.
I have an important comission on deadline, that's gonna be next, I think. And as soon as my hand is fully functional again, trust me, I've got more oil coming ^^

Till then, keep up your good work and happy deviating,
Thomas

Hey there, dear readers!

Let's talk about change. You all might know those phrases you find in literature and documentaries, those lines like "That event really changed my life" or "That week made me another person".
I've always thought those lines to be empty and nothing more then what I called them before: phrases.
But I've changed my mind ... and I've changed.

The last few weeks have been some sort of personal hell. I've felt and actually been betrayed by a person that I thought to be very close to me, I've nearly lost something that's very, very precious to me, I've certainly lost a lot of trust, faith and innocence as far as all things interpersonal are concerned. I've seen this whole construct I considered to be "my life" crumble and fall apart.
I've lost a lot, in general, and at some points I felt so emotionally exhausted that I wasn't sure if I could really take it any more. Well, as can be seen, I could, although only with some help from friends.

I've then taken a long, long look at those shards that were once my life and before putting each part to the place it came from, I asked myself if I really wanted it back. Like a close friend of mine put it: It's easy to reassemble your life if it's broken to pieces anyway." And so I did.
Yesterday, a friend of mine asked me, wether I'm still really me. Each time she'd see me, she told me, I'd seem to have changed radically lately. Which is, actually, not completely wrong.
Last time I met her, I had shaven of my beard which I had been growing for half a decade now and the day before yesterday when we met, she was among the first witnesses to account that I have done the same with my shoulder-length hair by now.

I've thought long and hard about each of those steps before and will do so too about some more to come, but each of them just feels right at the moment. I'm sure that some of those changes are grounded in the decision to leave at least something behind, to make a cut between now and that past in which I was so badly hurt.
But was it true what I told her, am I still really me?
The main reason that gives me a lot of certainty that I'm not doing it just for the sake of making the cut is that other things, that accompany for a longer time by now, also including this art gallery, are not endangered. No, it's the opposite: I finally dare to say "Yeah, I'm doing artwork, take a look at my portfolio, will ya?" - something I was always very shy about.

There's a lot of things that bothered me in the last months that I finally dare to face and overcome. And in many cases, the main question has to be: Why didn't I do that before?
Here's a piece of advice you might find handy: If something in your life askes to be changed, dare and change it. Do not wait for a catastrophy to come along and help you change it; in my case, it sort of does, but the ease with which most things can be adjusted is just augmenting the question why I lived with those things before.

Coming out of this emotional and practical cleansing actually helped me to find back to me and, in the meantime, show me some things clearly that I somehow wanted for a long time, but that I so far dismissed for one reason or the other.
For all the things I've lost, I've gained some things too. A perspective, a chance I never dreamed to get, some new insights about myself, more self-esteem, more self-confidence, a very clear understanding of what I want and something I might call personal growth.

I wonder if, let's say in a year, this point will still be showing. If you can, 366 days in the future, point at April 2007 and note a detectable change in the nature of my artwork. I can pinpoint some elements right here and now, but I won't. And if it's for no other reason then making it impossible for me, myself, to re-read this post in a year and remind myself.
Art should be self-explanatory; if it's not, it's empty. If the change is relevant, it'll still be there in a year. If it's not, it'll be a mood point anyway.
I know where I want to be in a year. I've actually a text at hand that kind of underlines those goals and that'll be printed in a few days, sealed with wax and stored somewhere where I'll know it to be in good hands.
And in a year, we'll see how well things turned out.

"Change is good", Master Splinter says in the pilot episode of the newest Turtles cartoon.
"May you live in interesting times" is a chinese curse.
If you'd asked me, eight weeks ago, wether I want change, I'd have denied it.
If you'd asked me a month ago, I'd have gone with the Chinese.
If you ask me now ... I feel like I've been given a chance. A big chance.

I'll do my best to grab it.

And produce artwork along the way.
Be prepared for some things you haven't ever seen from me before!


Your's truly,
a changed Thomas