In Arizona, a 13 year old boy was recently suspended from school for making a drawing that resembles a gun. There is no indication that he has a history of preoccupation with violent visual imagery, has made explicit or implied threats, engaged in violent behavior, tortures animals, or any other issues that would make a drawing of a gun part of a pattern that responsible adults might reasonably be concerned about. A 13 year old kid makes a doodle of a gun and gets kicked out of school.

I consult in schools and have worked with extremely dangerous adolescents. I spent the last three days teaching a course for special educators and school psychologists on how to prevent and manage violence. So I’ve seen lots of kids who need intervention and discipline. I think that suspending a kid for making a drawing is an incredible act of bureaucratic cowardice.

This may have only a peripheral association with art, but it still concerns me. If teenagers are afraid to make art because an adult might find their work to be politically incorrect, then we all, in the long run, will live in a world with less good art.

Ultimately, I think this trend is related to the increasing median age in core Western societies. As more people find the young to be alien and frightening, there is more and more push for “zero tolerance” of behaviors would in their own youth have been considered innocuous.

</rant>

Working on ideas for new posts. Any requests or suggestions?

I’d like to thank everyone who came here and stayed. I am especially grateful to all of the thoughtful commenters here.

Feel free to add comments or constructive feedback.

A few caveats: Files should be less than 100k in size.* Make sure it’s a decent photo or scan, not one full of glare or other problems. I’m not qualified to judge most abstract or political work. Don’t send your first ever painting; do 10 or 20 or 100 more and send the best one of those. Don’t’ send joke images; I’ll only add you to my spam filter. Send only one image. Send your own work. (Yes, you can probably fool me by sending an image of some classic but not well-known painting. Big deal.) If you’re a better artist than me (and lots of people are) then I would not be the one to judge your work.

*You can find out the size by selecting the file (click on it once) and choosing “Properties” (Windows) or “Get info” (Mac) from the File menu. If it gives a size in megabytes (MB) the file is way too big. If you’re not sure how to make the file small enough to send conveniently by email, you will need to change either the pixel dimensions of the image, the amount of compression, or both. Changing the number of dots per inch only affects how it will print, not the file size. Try saving the file in JPG format if it’s not already that kind of file. If this paragraph seems like gibberish to you, find a teenager who knows about computers and ask them to make the file 100 k (kilobytes) or less in size.

First, with regard to safety information, don’t ever just take anyone’s word for it. I have several posts here that relate to safety. But I’m just some guy. Why would you do what I say, no matter how much authority I seem to pretend to have? This is your health and the health of everyone who comes in contact with your art stuff we’re talking about here. Just because I say that lead paint, used with reasonable caution, is perfectly safe, is no reason to think it’s true. It is true, but you shouldn’t believe me just because I say so. Only believe it after you’ve checked out the relevant information, separated out the truth from the fear-mongering, and decided for yourself what makes sense for you.

I’m not an expert. I don’t have a degree in art. I’m not a professional artist. I’ve done a lot of studying about art and I think I mostly know what I’m talking about. But you haven’t read my sources. You haven’t tried the things I have. You haven’t made the mistakes, or had the successes, that I have. All you have when you come to this website is the words and images here. You don’t know for sure whether I know what I’m talking about, or I’m a clueless blowhard.

The same goes for just about everyone else. Even people who have nice websites and appear to have some sort of credentials may be providing useful information, or garbage. Likewise, people who post on internet fora may or may not know what they’re talking about. I’ve found some pretty silly stuff in books as well.

So please read with intelligence and skepticism. Do that with everything here, and everything else you see on the internet. Try people’s advice and see if it works for you. Read other sources and compare. It’s more work that way, but a lot better than deciding that I (or anyone else) can be taken at face value. I know I have a clue, but you have no reason to believe me. Not until you try what I suggest and find out.

At one level, I’m comfortable with this. I know I’ll get back to painting, and I know it will be sooner rather than later. Painting is too important to me to allow it to become something I used to do. Right now, it seems OK to take a break, take stock, think about what I want to be producing, and let the back of my creative mind work out whatever it is it’s doing right now. That doesn’t seem professional, but fortunately I don’t depend on art to pay the mortgage. That gives me the luxury to be able to take an extended break from time to time.

On the other hand, I’m kind of anxious to get started again. Any regular activity contains its own momentum. The more you exercise, the easier it is to exercise more. The more you paint, the easier it is to bring yourself to paint again. Right now, there’s an inertia that makes it easier to hang out with my wife and play with my baby son than it is to make dinner, take out the trash, arrange with Kirsten to watch Brendan for a couple of hours, and go paint. Once I do that again for the first time, even if the painting part is clumsy and frustrating (as it probably will be as I get back into practice), it will be easier to get back into the habit. And that’s what I need to do, and soon.

Brendan is getting better. He’s breathing well, keeping food down, looking better, seeming happier, and his other symptoms are less severe. He’s back in day care, so we don’t have to beg for help from family and friends so that we can get to work (thanks to Joyce, Carol, Cheyenne, and Nancy). Last night Brendan woke up only once, instead of staying up most every night with unpleasant symptoms I won’t describe here.

The cold that I got (probably brought on mainly by exhaustion) is also better. (Teaching a class at work with a throbbing head cold was lots of fun.) My wife Kirsten has a bad case of the sniffles, but she’s been getting more sleep, so that should go away soon.

With any luck, I should get back to posting here normally very soon.

I’d like to thank everyone who posted a comment or wrote an email to provide support. Your kind words are much appreciated.