It has been a long time since I’ve updated my online portfolio. Last I checked, it has managed to go unchanged for a solid 7 years. When you work fifty plus hours a week, commute more than 2 hours a day, and still reserve time to keep your physical health in check, it’s really hard to squeeze more activities into your day — no matter how interested you are. Physically, it’s just too taxing.
Drawing fellow commuters — something I’ve always loved to do since the ferry days of Staten Island — became a hassle. Public transportation was no longer my source of inspiration, but simply a time to catch up on sleep. It would be all too easy to pin it on my job as a photo retoucher (or any number of interests that I’ve allowed to distract me). But when I look long and hard at what has been hampering my personal art, I cannot look any further than myself to blame.
With very little left in the tank, showcasing my work became more of a pipe dream, with no realistic strategy in sight. A solo show here and a group show there is just not enough when they are spaced years apart. Everyone always says, “Do it while you’re young.” And then when you get old, it becomes, “It’s never too late.” “You’ll understand when you’re older,” is particularly useful for when you cannot impart wisdom regarding the transition. As for me? I like to subscribe to “It will happen when the time’s right.”
I was reminded of this during a speakeasy at Wanderlust Oahu 2016 this past February. Anthony Chavez asked the audience of his lecture, The Anatomy of Results, to quantify, by percentage, the three components of achieving success: intention (wish or goal), state (energetic and/or emotional), and action (i.e. if equally important, that would be 33.33% each). Most people, through their own personal experience, agree that action makes it happen. But actually, the crucial element is state. The action doesn’t change but is directly affected by how you show up to the task at hand.
“Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.” – Abraham Lincoln
“If you are the big tree, we are the small axe.” – Bob Marley
This site is dedicated to my journey towards sharpening my axe so that I may one day cut down that proverbial big tree and carve my name into it.