Etched glass NYC

I woke up at  4 AM today. Wrote six pages on my screenplay then hit the road to go etch my glass Saints. I want to thank bear glass for being a great partner and letting me etch there for years. I give them my regular glass jobs, they  let me etch. A great win/ win with a good company. Keeping relationships good is a lot easier than building new ones. You cannot be just a  taker, you must give back in life and biz. It was a hard lesson for me to learn as I am kind of self focused in my own spinning art orbits at times. So today I finished this panel, I was exhausted and tired but I saw the puppy through and didnt quit ( I wanted to go home, badly) Now the top two panels are done. I have one more day or at worse two to finish bottom panels. You cannot outwork me...Now I am going to write another ten pages of script. I will sleep when I am dead. 

 I was etching today..tired and worn out and I found I was just going through the motions. Not making art. I was trying to get stuff done for deadline and not enjoying the process. I have been etching glass since I taught myself at 17 or 18, this is longer than a lot of people stick to the same career. When I started to work on the face I decided "what the hell!" lets have some fun and enjoy the process. Etching isnt easy, I wear a mask and headphones and the dust is terrible and there is always a problem, so you have to really look for the good in the battle. I decided to have fun with The face of St. Joseph...Etching faces is the hardest thing I have ever done in art. Painting faces is like eating ice cream compared to the hell of trying to sandblast a good face. Here I tried to give him and expression that says..Hey, I am pretty cool..Im the father of Christ. I was thinking that most parents are proud if their kid gets good grades, or is a top player in sports but imagine if you are the father of jesus himself..thats something you can brag to the neighbors about. I tried to make him look a bit like my first art teacher and my first art teacher always had this kinda cocky eyebrow thing going on (except for him it was a wry cynicism) In short, my point is that you must look for things in art to keep you interested, you must play games with yourself. If you go through the motions (even on commercial work)and if there is no spirit in the creation it will not sing for the ages. And as Leonardo said "where the spirit does not meet the hand, there can be no art" have fun, young arteesto.