mikevarley.com

Hello All,

Welcome to a much delayed version of the Mike Varley Plain Dealer.  It was an erratic four months to be sure.  As always, speed readers should look for the bold.  Let’s begin:

Personal Life:

Truly…manic.  As some of you know, Erin and I broke up in the middle of November.  As even less of you know, Erin and I got back together a month later. I’ll learn from the mistakes of my previous break-up email and keep it brief and mysterious: I’m trying my best to be a loving person and I feel like I’m on a good path again.  For those of you I know well, I appreciate your support on that path.  To those of you I don’t know well, I extend the same thoughts.

In other closely connected personal events, I’ve taken up an interest in mindfulness and meditation after exploring the books and lectures of John Kabat-Zinn and Thich Nhat Hhan. It all rings true to me and I want it to be my latticework for a new way of personal thought.  To those who sympathize, I appreciate your support.  For those not on board, I’ll say it again.

The tour guide position does not look like it’s going to happen in the immediate.  To be honest, I lost my wind when I learned they had over hired.  Tour guide: not recession proof. Highly recession inflammable.

As with other things recently, I’ve shifted my focus on thoughts job-related.  In order to be happy in the present moment, I need to not think of my current job as something I need to shed to be fulfilled. This does not mean I will discontinue job search, but it does mean I’ll allow myself to love and honor my job again.

I’ve rethought how I want to create, or perhaps truly defined my role as a creator for the first time. I want to create as a gift, to further the Human Project in my incremental way.  I don’t believe this jives with our contemporary model of a creator, who thinks suffering is implied and reproduces pain for the world’s consumption.  That’s not to say this art shouldn’t exist, but there’s an imbalance in the ledger and I only want to write with black ink from now on.

Creative Life:

One of the reasons I held off so long on the update was I was waiting to have a big announcement of the movie being finished.  Mark got a new job, however, and it’s commanding a lot of long hours from him, so production has stalled.  We’re this close.  All we really need is to build the DVD menu and we’re set.  I want this done by February 6th.

Here’s a video I made of the trip Erin and I took to Acadia National Park over Columbus Day weekend:

Acadia National Park, set to The Mountain Goats’ “Going to Maine”

I’m also working on a new canvass, the first of something I’m tentatively calling The Twin Canvass Project.  Here’s some video of me preparing the mystery project.  If we’re lucky, I’ll have pictures by next update:

The Pour

Hole Building

Here’s a song from my band/music collective, The Secret Lives of Crossing Guards.  We’re sort of a cultural movement, meeting every Monday from 6-10 and having fun.  Anyone that’s in the Brooklyn area is welcome to come and play or just hang out:

The Secret Lives of Crossing Guards, “Ess O Ess”

I’ve undertaken a project at the nursing home to try and get local art showcased in the hallways – a sort of Carillon gallery space.  Initial interest has been promising, so hopefully I’ll have something good to report in a few months.

Nothing earthshaking going down at MikeVarley.com right now.  I’ve started doing a weekly segment on cool internet links, but that’s about it.

That’s it for now.  Happy 2010 and expect more news in February.

Regards,
Mike Varley