Backstory Blog 1: The Windowless Room

Maybe a good place to start this little backstory blog is a description of my war room. Well, it's a tiny, windowless room in the basement of my folks' old house. I lived here before I moved out, got married, owned my own house, got divorced, and sold that house. Then I moved back to the windowless room. My folks have another house now and are happily retired. Us siblings use the old place for cheap rent.

I like this room because the house is poorly insulated and next to a busy street. The room is quiet, relatively easy to keep warm or cool, and very private. It's small though, and I miss having a window.

Lots of artists have big desks with a thousand trinkets and art pieces nearby to help stimulate their creativity. For some reason I've always lived sparse in terms of decoration. Just a couple of posters and doodads. I like it that way, though. It makes what few items I have feel more valuable.

I want to say I'm a humble artist, but maybe I'm just making excuses. I'd rather live just a little more lavishly. A closet would be nice, or a ceiling that I don't keep bumping my hands on. I have a lot in savings now ready to buy a house... as soon as the market crashes and houses become affordable, that is.

You might notice my computer's a Mac. It's partly why I don't play a lot of games. Mac OS is stable and reliable and I grew up preferring it. Sadly, Apple has gone greedy and when it's time for me to upgrade computers I'm gonna have to move to Windows. When that happens maybe I'll get a fancy huge new tablet too. Er, actually there isn't room for either of those. I guess I'll have to buy a house first. Priorities.

Did you know I have a degree? A bachelor's in psychology. And how am I using it? It's actually helped tremendously in teaching me how motivation works. It's largely how I've organized my life around art in spite of art's inherent difficulties. It's where I get my empathy for others; I understand how people think and feel and why, and I forgive them and care about them. Psychology has taught me how to learn, how to focus, and how to stay sharp and improve over time. I'm no shrink but lemme tell you, psychology is the foundation of my intelligence and it's what makes me succeed.

So yeah, there's two bits on my humble workspace. If it suits your fancy, feel free to peek around the pictures and ask me about some of my items. I'll post more backstory blogs soon, describing stuff like old art and family matters and some of my deeper emotions and inspirations and all kinds of random whatnot.