Written By Fortunato
March 18, 2017, 12:07 p.m.(2/12/1006 AR)
I have always understood the desire, no, the need to run away.
Relate to failure. Falling short. You get into patterns of feeling insufficient, get into patterns where you avoid offering proof of your insufficience. Live on potential. Live on hopeful starts, and you didn't finish this time, but it was a beautiful start and you aren't bound to finish and everyone hopes one day you will fulfill your potential.
Uncertainty in this context is crippling. You feel the fulfillment is impossible. You leave before it has any chance to occur, you leave leaving people with the idea that if you'd been able to push through, you would've changed everything. You would've been everything they needed.
To maintain a certain, hm, self-image, ironically, you have to be continually giving up. Stopping before people can see you fail at the height of your effort. Stopping before anyone, including you, can see what you're capable of and what you're decidedly not capable of. Yet.
But growth is a product of failure, of effort beyond what you're comfortable with and what you can spare.
I've said that the need for control is the same as fear. But fear is always what holds us back. Fear of failure, perhaps more than anything. In these cases, sometimes having too much choice, being marginally capable at too many things, gives us a kind of soft permission to walk every path for a few minutes, and then drift back to the next and to the next, participating shallowly, never progressing further toward any one destination. You can survive this way. You can even have a pleasant life, this way.
But how I feel when I'm painting deep, painting with my whole everything, makes the shallowing, the early departures, the step-backs and failure fears, it makes the parts of my life where I do not /try/ feel so empty. It's a lesson. Another one, another one.
Relate to failure. Falling short. You get into patterns of feeling insufficient, get into patterns where you avoid offering proof of your insufficience. Live on potential. Live on hopeful starts, and you didn't finish this time, but it was a beautiful start and you aren't bound to finish and everyone hopes one day you will fulfill your potential.
Uncertainty in this context is crippling. You feel the fulfillment is impossible. You leave before it has any chance to occur, you leave leaving people with the idea that if you'd been able to push through, you would've changed everything. You would've been everything they needed.
To maintain a certain, hm, self-image, ironically, you have to be continually giving up. Stopping before people can see you fail at the height of your effort. Stopping before anyone, including you, can see what you're capable of and what you're decidedly not capable of. Yet.
But growth is a product of failure, of effort beyond what you're comfortable with and what you can spare.
I've said that the need for control is the same as fear. But fear is always what holds us back. Fear of failure, perhaps more than anything. In these cases, sometimes having too much choice, being marginally capable at too many things, gives us a kind of soft permission to walk every path for a few minutes, and then drift back to the next and to the next, participating shallowly, never progressing further toward any one destination. You can survive this way. You can even have a pleasant life, this way.
But how I feel when I'm painting deep, painting with my whole everything, makes the shallowing, the early departures, the step-backs and failure fears, it makes the parts of my life where I do not /try/ feel so empty. It's a lesson. Another one, another one.
Written By Fortunato
March 14, 2017, 9:57 p.m.(2/4/1006 AR)
Relationship Note on Zhayla
A kitten. A puffy kitten in a nest of sand and bleached driftwood, her bright orange fur in stark contrast to the pale. She is sleeping, or at least relaxed, her paw crept over her nose, her tail crooked, but still and placid along her side. Only the perk of her ears hint at anything like alertness. Moon shines down on her, its full, round shape shaky and silver, shaky as a reflection in the water.
Labeled at the bottom, "There, Zhayla. A kitten."
Labeled at the bottom, "There, Zhayla. A kitten."
Written By Fortunato
March 12, 2017, 11:54 p.m.(2/1/1006 AR)
Sketches. A pair of hands, palm up. Thumbs on each flayed to bone. Beneath them, a rock, or a skull's carapace? A tree carved with dragons and surrounded by wisps of cloud. A hurried depiction of the Stone Grove, the pillars high, the vegetation crowding. A flock of birds, bearing, together, a net with a sword tangled within. Five spears plunged into the ground, each of their thin shadows set at a wildly different angle. A splatter of dark, or perhaps something scribbled out.
Written By Fortunato
March 5, 2017, 10:27 a.m.(1/14/1006 AR)
Relationship Note on Donella
Sketch. The Merchant Gate, portcullis raised, the visible grating entwined with dangling flowers. On either side of the great gate, shadowing the Iron Guard who flank it, are wild gardens grown from the wall, embedded ledges overflowing with curtains of vines. A crowd of people rivers across the bottom of the canvas, toward the open portcullis, but a couple have broken off from the mass to harvest beans from the hanging garden, their fingers tangled in the greenery, their baskets already half-full.
Written By Fortunato
March 5, 2017, 9:56 a.m.(1/13/1006 AR)
Picture. A sea of dark with a great flame in the center, a flame in yellows, reds, orange. Most of the color of the sketch has gone here. Born (and borne) out from the center are smaller flames, rendered mostly in white with the occasional off-yellow streak, rendered in asymmetrical variations on hazy circles. These smaller scatter out, patternless, to the far edges of the blackened canvas.
Written By Fortunato
Feb. 26, 2017, 11:59 p.m.(1/1/1006 AR)
Relationship Note on Aureth
Remember when we were young and loose and clever? Tied to nothing and no one, invisible, so it was safe for us to fly low and laugh.
Now, sometimes, I feel disoriented. But then I remember you're still here. We're here together. We'll be all right. Take a deep breath. Find the moment. Dart on to the next moment. And the next.
And make more jokes. I have a hard time remembering that, sometimes. But I have you to guide me in that, don't I.
Now, sometimes, I feel disoriented. But then I remember you're still here. We're here together. We'll be all right. Take a deep breath. Find the moment. Dart on to the next moment. And the next.
And make more jokes. I have a hard time remembering that, sometimes. But I have you to guide me in that, don't I.
Written By Fortunato
Feb. 26, 2017, 11:17 p.m.(1/1/1006 AR)
Sketches. A few stray flecks of stars. A wolf with its jaws closed around the haft of a torch, sparks scattering in the dry brush. A paintbrush like a torch tucked into the brush, caught, burning. A skein of cloth draped over a skull. A flattened, battered dagger, of a metal too tarnished, old, brittle to be recognizable. Sunrise through a window into a stale empty room, lighting dust motes like embers.
Written By Fortunato
Feb. 19, 2017, 8:47 p.m.(12/14/1005 AR)
Relationship Note on Vincere
A brief portrait in frustrated lines. Vincere is seated, his eyes bright and incisive, his smile all cool curiosity. There is a book in his lap, open. The pages have gone dark.
Written By Fortunato
Feb. 19, 2017, 4:12 p.m.(12/14/1005 AR)
A painting, submitted. Messily. A gulf, an gorge splitting two sides. The gorge is an unsteady dark, a dark lit dimly down below with fire. A dark scattered along the torn edges with stars. On the right hand, blood and rubble in the grass, swords and staves fallen in the grass. Upon a fallen pillar, a scrap of cloth tied to a fragile twist of stone. The hint of a scaled tail drifting into the farthest right side of the painting. Left side. Architectural sketches that bleed into each other, an average commoner's house bleeding mid-roof into the wing of a great manor bleeding suddenly into a parapet with stained glass windows. Towers topped with light, walls shattered, yet held together and fragile with cord. On top of one of the light-topped towers, a figure sits, perilously comfortable, watching the viewer expectantly.
Written By Fortunato
Feb. 5, 2017, 11:57 p.m.(11/11/1005 AR)
Sketches. Plumes of smoke, all pale. Faces, indistinct, all indistinct, as if their heads were themselves made of smoke, as if they had no eyes save those the viewer might imagine for them. Angles of light piercing through plume and face alike, light drawn long and blade-like. In each of the corners, a small animal. Rat in the northwest, an orange bird in the northeast. A threadling white snake, southeast, a skinny-armed squid, southwest.
Written By Fortunato
Feb. 5, 2017, 11:49 p.m.(11/11/1005 AR)
Relationship Note on Esera
A sketch. She is seated in the high seats of the Blackrose Theater, her eyes fixed on the stage well below, depicted smaller and more remote than perspective would demand, the distance drawn deep. Her hair streams dark against the darkness of her dress, there is hardly a separation between them, her hands are clasped over the fold of her knees. Her expression is almost that of a smile, her expression is balanced precariously on the edge of wonder.
Written By Fortunato
Jan. 29, 2017, 10:42 p.m.(10/18/1005 AR)
Relationship Note on Denica
A sketch. A small, pale woman with dark hair is alone on a small boat with a small sail, seated by the rudder. Her face is bright with a mixture of hope and excitement. The great gray-dark gather of clouds above her and the great gray-dark of sea below her do not dim that expression remotely.
Written By Fortunato
Jan. 29, 2017, 10:25 p.m.(10/18/1005 AR)
Strange. Through various associations, most of them quite wonderful, I've ended up with a fair sheaf of notes about current events that between commissions and my own feverish tendencies, I have not had much time to sort through. I imagine others may have more power to do the practical things with such information and I will make an effort to be more open in needful things. Reserve is a luxury, sometimes.
Written By Fortunato
Jan. 29, 2017, 10:15 p.m.(10/18/1005 AR)
Relationship Note on Deva
A sketch. A young, green-brown snake is coiled on top of an old trunk, its long ago-demise clearly natural. Trees come, trees fall. Sometimes, their falls are gentle. The snake's mouth is open, its teeth nearly transparent, but the impression is entirely that of grinning enthusiasm. The sky behind it is fire-bright.
Written By Fortunato
Jan. 20, 2017, 9:57 a.m.(9/17/1005 AR)
A pastel sketch. An aggressively bright-lit, friendly pastel sketch of kittens frolicking through high grass and drooping flowers. A couple of the kittens are on their backs, batting at low-hanging flowers. The edges are all a bit hard and sharp, though, as if drawn and overdrawn. At the base of the sketch, in looping, prettily written text (if still a bit heavily-pressed, easy on the ink there), "Caution and control doesn't mean inaction." A few little flowers are inked in on the end of the text. How nice, it's all very nice.
Written By Fortunato
Jan. 15, 2017, 8:37 p.m.(9/4/1005 AR)
Perception is subjective.
That can be terrifying, when you think about it. Take a friend. Stand on a precipice and look down. Don't speak to each other, not one word. Estimate the distance to the bottom, together, silent. If you stare long enough, the gulf becomes deeper. Or shallower. For you, the world changes merely through the length and intensity you stare at it. Of course, tritely, obviously, it's you that changes. At least for a moment.
Change is subjective. Unpredictable. Flickers of flame. Even a soft breeze can change the shape of a fire, however minutely. Or did you just think it did? Did you blink? Did you blink and forget?
Does it matter?
The need for control is the same as fear. You decide in the moment. You embrace the moment. Take a step and you may be somewhere else. Life is change. Take a breath. See where you are. Accept tomorrow will be different. Accept that tomorrow, you may be different.
Accept that every moment we have is a miracle.
That can be terrifying, when you think about it. Take a friend. Stand on a precipice and look down. Don't speak to each other, not one word. Estimate the distance to the bottom, together, silent. If you stare long enough, the gulf becomes deeper. Or shallower. For you, the world changes merely through the length and intensity you stare at it. Of course, tritely, obviously, it's you that changes. At least for a moment.
Change is subjective. Unpredictable. Flickers of flame. Even a soft breeze can change the shape of a fire, however minutely. Or did you just think it did? Did you blink? Did you blink and forget?
Does it matter?
The need for control is the same as fear. You decide in the moment. You embrace the moment. Take a step and you may be somewhere else. Life is change. Take a breath. See where you are. Accept tomorrow will be different. Accept that tomorrow, you may be different.
Accept that every moment we have is a miracle.
Written By Fortunato
Jan. 8, 2017, 10:36 p.m.(8/11/1005 AR)
Sketches, bunched together. All swords. Swords embedded in rock, grass, cracked dirt. Swords come grouped in threes or fives or tens. Most of the groupings are tens. The swords themselves are almost indifferently drawn, plain gray with only a hint of hilt, one almost identical with another. Unfinished quality to the chalk drawing, as if the artist lost focus and wandered off.
Written By Fortunato
Jan. 7, 2017, 7:07 p.m.(8/7/1005 AR)
Relationship Note on Myrinda
A simple portrait of Myrinda, her eyes clear and direct, the side of her mouth quirked on the edge of amusement. Facial portrait, mostly, but with shoulders, hint of aeterna. The terminal lines on the right side of the chalk sketch are smudged. Blurred.
Written By Fortunato
Jan. 1, 2017, 11:05 p.m.(7/18/1005 AR)
A garden, cramped in by iron fencing, the gate open. The interior, overgrown and dense, is a wind of vines, rose bushes, woody stunted trees, herbs wound around the stunted trunks almost to the point of stranglement. But only almost. The leaves of trees, herbs, vines are dew-lit, damp, all green and healthy enough. Just— too much. Patches of ruin peek through the foilage, worn stone, broken tile, collapsed past recognition. Near the opening of the garden, six cups, all glistening but battered metal, tin, perhaps. Each cup planted with tiny, just-budding flowers.
Written By Fortunato
Dec. 25, 2016, 10:57 p.m.(6/25/1005 AR)
A Knight of Solace, helm open, rides a horse through a blasted land, ashen, bleak if not for the hints of rebirth, saplings wound from ashen hills, hints of grass about collapsed ruins. A bag is slung across their shoulder, A simple cudgel hangs from their hip, and a vine wraps around this, as if the cudgel, too, were experiencing rebirth. Heads of horse and rider both are held high, sunlit, the horse is forward in full canter.
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