more of the same

during chess rendering
























was able to do some walking yesterday

























and today

training again

leery of peaking too early, and unwilling to commit so much time, had cut back on the walking a bit. now we're under three months before beginning our trek, getting into shape and building up endurance a priority again. 10 miles yesterday, along with chess progress which will continue today and tomorrow.


























last night, thought "beauty unimportant. truth and beauty no. truth important. beauty irrelevant." might free me up a bit (and result in something more beautiful).

technical challenges

spiral staircases last night, really tough at the beginning, but after a few attempts, started coming easier.


























turns out i didn't forget to hit the export button before leaving for the weekend. for some reason it just no longer works. don't think i have done anything differently and can't imagine what changed - so, mysterious problem, in the meantime pushing on one-at-a-time instead of automating a bunch of them. may figure it out. ron posited the possibility that there is another way, an easier, more efficient, less time-consuming way, and one may have occurred to me, but that will involve testing/research to see if it's possible. either way, chess is still coming along, gracelessly.

consistent concentration

something to aspire to.

last friday the dread pinwheel was spinning a hole in my screen. eventually, in the car, sister-in-law driving, trying to get work done on the animation, blocked at every click, decided to take a break. some solace knowing that chess rendering would continue back at my studio while i was out of town for the weekend.

did some walking saturday, with reasonable load (twenty-one pounds).





















here's how my niece and i appear to the shadow world.





















ruminated on what matthew and i might like to do together to make the kisokaido trek meaningful and fulfilling for both of us, and give us an opportunity to make some unique art which would otherwise not exist. keep returning to memories of our collage sessions in tokyo. painting in numazu was fun, but the tokyo sessions seemed more "serious" and the work is far more accomplished. of course, situationist-inspired wanders and games put us into a rarely-attained state of mind, but none of that has ever been shared, beyond a few participants. there might be a way to incorporate tasks and rules into, say, photographing certain subjects, or using certain methods to take pictures, which will enable us to share some of those sensations with an audience.

sunday morning up at six to climb the highest mountain in connecticut (haystack). oh, there are no mountains in connecticut. well, i climbed a hill.



















view from the top






















but what most impressed me was the sunlight diffused by the fog yet still backlighting this structure, seeming to create a murky sillouette somewhere between our world and the shadow world.





















witnessing visions like this, as rich as imaginings, provide a great deal of the motivation for undertaking the kisokaido journey. that and a mysterious desire to wear a clown nose with matthew again.

back in the studio, there were again moments when i saw a still frame of the animation in progress and thought "wow, i'm glad i was stuck here looking at that"























amazing how quickly that sentiment was replaced by visceral frustration






















faster computers? more-easily-executable ideas? concentrating on what i'm doing would help, too. realized, late sunday, never hit the "export" button and all those chess clips i was relying on my machine to churn through while i was off playing human with my brother's family - aren't ready. aren't even started. can't animate one thing and render another at the same time. so, it has been a week, was up late doing as much as i could. this isn't really what i had planned, but those ideas (of visual rhythm) are now notated and i did learn quite a bit. this animation is now complete, called "i never get that far" because it seems to illustrate the difficulty in thinking anything new - we are who we are and we think the way we do and we think the things we think over and over and over. everything is changing all the time but there is of course a paradoxical sameness inherent in how we live our lives. just over a minute, hope you enjoy it.

process views

in classroom of the apes last night, we did shadows in perspective
























and reflections

























both got me thinking about the shadow world

this morning, that continued, interpreting this: blue = complementary color of orange; orange paint on the sidewalk is where some of the cone [bled] [escaped] [slipped off the world]; in the absence of the orange on the cone, we see the shadow world (blue paint) (lack of orange cone = blue). also thought that this cone looks a bit like a guardian [against] sunlight.


























these are solidly in this world, i think (maybe guarding against the creep of the shadow coming from under the van)




















then was absorbed in working on that animation. one of the most rewarding parts of artmaking, and an aspect i try to incorporate in (convey through) my work, is all the in-between stages. a painting goes through a lot on the way to its completed state, each stroke changes it into a different painting - this animation is providing me with a lot of images which probably won't be seen by anyone, and they aren't my objective, i have a clear method of visual rhythm i'm trying to follow in order to create this animated piece, but doing the work, i'm forced to encounter one still picture after another

























which makes me feel like the pinwheel is actually on my side for a change, doing me a favor, forcing me to stop and look at what i'm doing - never thought i'd feel sympathetic towards that damn thing.

decisioning

comfortable with the timing and depth adjustments to the animation, had been ready to abandon it late the other night, now want to press on, hopefully can finish tonight or tomorrow so this machine can get back to chess rendering.

making work on the computer, it's relatively quick/easy to change the entire color scheme, as opposed to painting where you either stick to your guns or commit to a lengthier adjustment process.

three stills from roughly the same point, different color processing, maybe i should pick one of them, or figure out a way to use all three?

efficiency

so there are ways to set things up and have sweet machine render one after the other, no prodding from me

























for both computers



















means at least one of the three of us is working all the time.

but if i want to blog, it's not really possible, just takes their total concentration. so, until chess is done, figure at least two more weeks flat-out, pictures will be sporadic for sure, typing likely spotty as well. (one computer should be fast but it's not happening that way - anyway roughly four hours per game, one hundred twenty-eight games, do want to give it breaks sometimes, maybe fifteen done at this point.)

but the rendering can be interrupted. yesterday decided spur-of-the-moment to make an animation, not something i've really done at all.

basis is imagery taken from kurt coble's pamband website (i'm messing with it, most of what you see here is taken from the homepage).





















enjoyed some of the views when working on it




















the result - quite enjoy looking at stills



















but the piece, the movement that's there - well, i'm going to spend a little more time on it.

another month of editing?

it's not difficult, but the rendering does require quite a bit of time. there might be ways i can speed things along but as of this morning, it's roughly one hour per game, but then an additional hour if i want negative of each, which i think i do. hope to be able to resolve that tomorrow. in the meantime, there's no doubt about the positives, making steady progress.



























back in the day, i met a painter who said one of his favorite parts was stretching and priming canvasses, so relaxing. sometimes when i hit a spot in a project where it's a lot of work or time, without too much thinking, that sentiment reminds itself to me, and i feel free, somehow. tethered to the work and the piece won't get made otherwise, but it's so much less pressure than figuring out what i want to do, or deciding if i think something "looks right" or not, or how it could be changed. this is just making it happen, no hesitation, no fear.

closer

even if you set out with a definite idea of what you think you want to do, it's going to change (hopefully) and by the end you'll find something you do want to do. or you'll be led on to the next thing, maybe.

anyway, no visual yet, but just before falling asleep last night, realized that the shadow (negative) chess bits should be shown on the black squares, and the entire piece should have foreghosts or afterghosts, transparencies maybe a third of a second different from the "now" moment.

only real question remaining is how many games at once to show. one might be plenty.

unless, of course, i can't figure out how to do it, or it doesn't make sense when you look at it, in which case there will be several real questions remaining.

by sunday, believe will be resolved.

mid-final pre-editing...

inverting

one of the things i want to try, all the games in negative (in addition to positive), and see how that looks as a pure digital piece, also project positive onto white squares, and negative onto black squares, and try the reverse of that as well

show the shadow world

so, first step is convert some footage to negative