One of my favorite comedians, Kyle Kinane, has a joke in which one of the lines goes: “It’s hard being a human being.” Exactly. My wife and I repeat this line to each other very often and always with laughter. It is hard being a human being.

I’m not leading with this to say that being an artist is hard but just to say life is hard. Being an artist is not intrinsically harder than any other endeavor someone makes a choice to take on. I’m not interested in comparisons here. It’s just to say that too many times I find myself in the place I was in in my last post – What have I even been doing?

So once again to answer the question, “What have I even been doing?” Here’s what I’ve been doing since my last post:

And while I was doing this painting and drawing I also continued to make progress with my kitchen renovation (which has been put on the back burner for a while). Classes at the arts center where I teach drawing and painting have started back up. Perhaps most significantly I have started back to my job as a public school teacher at one of the local high schools. That certainly has been no small transition and it has been an extremely and unusually difficult return to school this year.

Please don’t take me to be bragging. Honestly this has far more to do with me helping me keep perspective and me doing some journalling too. I don’t often share even this much of my internal dialogue with many people. A small part of this is also a reply to a few folks who walk into my studio and in some form or fashion say, “oh… I’ve already seen this.”

It’s hard being a human being.