the right tools

I recently came across this article about David Hockney and his use of "iPhone" as an artistic medium. It really got me thinking about how often I tell myself I don't have the right tools to make art, or follow through with ideas I have. What a terrible way for me to think...how limiting! The last thing I need is another limitation. My ability to stop myself from doing things because of money problems is almost uncanny. I feel like I didn't used to be this way, and that maybe I am adding limitations as excuses to not make art...because I am scared? Why can't we use the tools we have? I'd like to say that I pride myself on not being elitist, but fear that I have fallen into snobbery as a way to overcomplicate things. I need to cut it out. 

So, as part of the Local Anesthetic project, I decided to start using my camera-phone to collect the imagery I need. These are a few of the pictures I've been gathering...

And I think that the camera-phone actually adds an interesting quality to the images. Something I am excited to play around with...

The Red Thing behind my door.

I sometimes have dreams that seem more like memories. Upon closer scrutiny it becomes clear that they must be dreams--I never lived in that house, I don't have long hair, etc. Teresa and I have had several of these dreams this month. It'll be dream about buying milk, or moving a chair, or something else very boring. Sometimes it's really hard to tell what is a dream and what is a memory. Imagine if you sold your soul to the devil when you were very young. You wouldn't really know what you did and thinking about it now, would you know whether its a dream or a memory?

So that's what I'm thinking: What if you sold your soul to the devil, but didn't know it. Would he check up on you? I am thinking of this in a comic format, existing in a dream world...

A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing

I think I'm fixed on the idea of how one is fooled and deceived. How many times have you been swindled by someone (i.e. purchasing something from a store, getting tickets from a scalper, or an umbrella in Amsterdam that happens to have a hole in it for 12 Euros)?

The best trick the devil can play on anyone is to be a master of deception – transforming himself into something beautiful / attractive / familiar. It scares me to think about how this always happens at a such a higher level (in politics, government, military) and over issues that affect so many millions of others.

This begs the question: How do we avoid being deceived? What ways can we have better discernment between good and evil? Do we have the capacity to?

the devil is your friend.

I have been thinking about how the Devil would ask you for your soul. How would the Devil trick you? Would the Devil take on a guise of a loved one? What if your best friend was your dog? Would your dog ask you for your soul? Telling you it was a good idea?

There is a dog that lives across the alley from us. I saw him sneak out of his yard one day to bark at a cat, and now I have been waiting to see him again so that I can take his picture. He ran out through a crack in the fence and I said, "Hey!" and he gave me the strangest look, like I shouldn't approach him, and then he went back into his yard.

local anesthetic

Selling your soul to the devil isn't like the movies or books tell you it is. There's no showdown between the Devil and God for you when you die, and the story doesn't end there either. God says he gave us the power of knowledge and the right to choose, but when the devil asked me to sell him my soul, I was too young to know any better.