Burst Reach #24
everything moves on whether you're ready or not
Hey everyone! Happy May! I turned 36 early last week and kind of forgot because life has been kind of all over the place.
This is Baron. He’s an eleven year old former service dog who belonged to a relative who passed away. My wife and mother-in-law found him alone in his home and brought him to stay with us until things settled down. He ended up going to a new home this past weekend, when things were definitely not settled, but in the week that we got to keep him he was the absolute sweetest dog I’ve ever met and put his service skills to work whenever I was stressed out about something. I hope he likes his new family and that they love him as much as I do.
I’m finally out of training and have been working from home for this call center job for a couple of weeks now. I started a new schedule today with a new supervisor, team, and manager. I still have all of the mixed feelings about it. Some days aren’t so bad. It was a lot of upheaval when we were told to start working from home around the same time that I was preparing for last month’s ArtStruck Festival, so I had to get a desk and move a lot of things around in my office, then Baron showed up and I had to work while accommodating him, now he’s gone and I’m on this new schedule…it’s a lot!
But I’m trying to think of more long-term plans that don’t involve wearing a headset for eight hours a day. During a one-on-one meeting last month, my training manager asked what my goals were for five years from now. I’ve never been able to think that far ahead, and that’s a problem that I need to work on.
Okay, let’s break up all this text real quick with a painting from a picture taken at the end of my figure drawing group’s last meetup in March:
As far as the near future goes, though…the Cryptozoologist group exhibition opens at HollerHouse in Bristol on June 7th. I’ve finished my Grafton Monster painting and will be dropping it off soon and sharing it closer to the show! The next day, June 8th, is the Wytheville UFO Fest! Gotta start prepping for that. And then Friday, June 14th is Embodied Art Dance’s CorpoReality performance at the Reece Museum in Johnson City, part of their Embodying Culture: Women in Appalachia exhibition. There’s still not an event for that, but here’s the flyer I made for it once again:
Oh, and my comedian friend Hunter Roberts, who officiating my wedding, is bringing back his comedy trivia game show Wealth of Knowledge Man this month. He asked me to design the poster for its return, introducing a new sidekick, so I decided to base it off of the first appearance of Robin, the Boy Wonder:
Some other things: I THINK a new Asada & Mischa strip will be up on Planet Nude this Sunday, and I have a new article reviewing the film 10 Days in a Nudist Camp coming up this month as well, so keep an eye out for those! I’m also currently working on an interview with another artist for the blog as well!
Okay, some other things I want to mention that aren’t shameless self-promotion: Godzilla X Kong: the New Empire, is fantastic. I saw it opening day, then my lifelong best friend and I made a road trip to see it in IMAX. Godzilla Vs Megalon is my favorite movie of the franchise, and GXK has a VERY similar, goofy, fun energy to it and I LOVE Godzilla’s new Evolved form. I did a crappy drawing of it back in March but I’m going to do a better version soon. Dev Patel’s directorial debut Monkey Man is also killer, a loving homage to violent revenge films, screaming with blood, sweat, and soot. It also prominently features the Hijra, a community of trans and gender-non-comforming people of India, and they kick a lot of ass.
The only show I’ve been watching is the Netflix anime adaptation of Delicious in Dungeon, and I’m on volume 12 of the manga as well. It’s so good, highly recommended.
And finally, I’ve been bad at videogames lately, but Endless Ocean Luminous came out on the Switch last week and my wife and I have both been loving it. It’s proven perfect for me to play at the end of a work day, because there are no real stakes, no way of dying or getting a game over, no way to fail. You’re literally just diving in the ocean, exploring, salvaging treasure, and scanning and learning about aquatic life while serene music plays. There’s also a story mode, but the real meat of the gameplay is just diving and mapping out the Veiled Sea. But it’s so chill, so relaxing, and easy to pick up and play. Last night I found my favorite shark, the tasseled wobbegong, along with a cool prehistoric turtle. Game of the year.
Oh, and here’s a Bernini angel statue I painted at the ArtStruck Festival last month, for good measure.
Alright, that’s it. My shift starts in a little over an hour so I’ve gotta get ready for that. Take care!