I turn 44 on the 25th and when one reaches such a middle-mid-life point there’s naturally a period of reflection that takes place. I can remember when I was 13 years old and how I desperately wanted to be this age in my life. The 40’s back then meant freedom and opportunity. I can’t say that I’ve taken the world by storm; though I do think I’ve more or less achieved what I wanted, and I’m relieved and heartened that I was fortunate enough to do it.
As I look back on my childhood I realize it was typical for my community and not as challenging as I thought then. I can remember complaining bitterly as if I was a refugee in a war torn country because of the drugs, neglect, and abuse my brother sister and I encountered. But, as I said before this was happening all around me so I’d say all things considered Yhana, Evans and I did well for ourselves, making lemonade out of lemons, like everyone in under-privledged communities do.
The one feature that seems ever-present to me now that I’ve reached this age in life is how much time I have left. When you start to face the latter half of your life the challenges of attaining all those dreams one has garnered since childhood, like say getting that perfect job, or dutiful spouse, or comfortable house, or nice car, seem more pressing. It’s actually kind of funny to me because so much of my youth was spent waiting for the freedom to do what I wanted and so I constantly felt anxious. Now it seems that the latter part will be just as anxiety producing because of the limited time I have to do xzy before the ravages of time set in.
I’ve been spending some time lately coming to grips with my time constraints and making some peace with what I can do in a given week. In the studio it has meant a reduction in output that feels ok but unnerving. My time issues have put in stark relief the fact that I need to seek more accommodating employment because it’s hard to connect so many of the dots I need to connect to make my art business more sustainable without more concentrated time. My strategy usually when I have issues like this in my life is to complain about it incessantly to friends until someone tells me to throw down or shut up. I’ve been doing that about this job situation that I’m in for years but am now feeling some renewed vigor to finally do something constructive about it since the fall is the time of looking for college level teaching positions. Hopefully Covid-19 doesn’t completely destroy higher education so that there are jobs left to apply to.
Even in the midst of my busy week I do on occasion take moments out to notice beauty. My friend Andrew March is one of those providers for me. He’s an excellent photographer and I love his nocturne scenes. Actually all his work is getting really good. I’d love to do a painting inspired by a few of his pieces. Here’s one that I found particularly lovely that he posted on Facebook last week.
Two of my favorite artists that I follow released new tracks over the last few weeks that I liked and wanted to share. There’s Azailia Banks and her new single Black Modonna, and Sango and his new single Kalimba. Here are some youtube videos of these tracks.
I did want to take one brief moment here at the end to state a little about what I’m trying to do in these here blogs. These blog posts are musings, and are loose. They are meant to give people a idea of what goes into my creative process. I received some comments meant more or less to squash my free expression lately. There are any number of trolls who’d scream about their rights to free expression and I say purveyors of a more positive message have that same freedom. I rarely engage too deeply in negativity online because there is so much content that is to my liking to choose from. If my little blog doesn’t meet your standards feel free to shop around. For my part I’ll continue chiming in about my art and other thoughts in my often clumsy haphazard way. I will hopefully get a little better along the way with any luck. Be well and stay safe everyone.
Anthony Smith Jr. 