I take a look back and see where my life has been every now and then.

I’m an art student born of science and math. In the early 1900’s, this was the norm, but in the school I go to, people strain to multiply. I carry a TI-89 graphing calculator in my bag. I know how to calculate the aperture of a pinhole. I’ve measured the focal length of a Hasselblad. I’ve figured out the function for all apertures. When teachers in my school say that the hypotenuse of a triangle with legs 24 and 36 is 50, I correct them saying that it’s 43.3. And this is all easy stuff.

Besides all that, I’m a Christian art student. I know of a few others, but it’s not common. At art school there aren’t the science-based atheists that I’m so accustomed to. There’s something of everything: I have a friend who’s mother is a Wiccan high-priestess. I love all the different people.

These thoughts were possibly sparked after a dinner visit at the Knutson’s. Silly as it is, I noticed all of the pictures of their children on the walls. It made me think of myself in the early nineties: braces, double-bridge glasses, trendy flat-top. In some ways, I find it difficult to relate my current self to my former self.

If my identity is in myself, and I keep changing, I’ll never really know who I am. But, if I place my identity in something immovable, it will always stay the same (Heb. 13:8).

My parents randomly decided to go to Florida with my little sister this weekend, leaving me and my younger video-gaming, cart-pushing brother to take care of Blue, our Golden Retriever (that’s a dog). I’m not normally home very much, but this was a good weekend for them to take a hiatus. I was in my room this evening, paying monthly bills and cleaning up a bit. When she came downstairs to see me, I thought she was just lonely, or she needed a dish of water; or maybe she needed someone to listen to her problems, or to give her a backrub, or to sing her to sleep. I was busy at the moment, so I invited her to stay a while. It turns out that she just needed to go potty, and she did it on my bed.

I’ve had a few peers at my school check out my website, and one the comments was that I should remove the link to my blog. The issue, he said, was a problem with mixing personal life up with business. In a way, I see his point, but I’m also not so sure that it matters. I am a person aren’t I? Is it really possible to not mix them? Maybe that’s just how the business world works: no one really cares to personally know the people with whom they work.

As I progress in my education as an art student, having very little visual art background until college, I constantly doubt my abilities and talents. These feelings are out of place when I look back on the things I have accomplished in the past year and when I look at the work I have produced; I am proud of it. There is a struggle taking place for credit. Who did this work and why is it good?

I truly believe that God is responsible for any talent I have. It is a life-goal of mine to be a humble photographer: there is no greater oxymoron in the art world, but I do think it’s possible. However, if one is humble about his or her artwork, he or she will sell nothing (maybe one print a year from the local coffeeshop) and produce today’s cliché, disgustingly boring “Christian art.” Therefore, the artwork must be vigorously - even arrogantly - promoted, but credit must be given to God.

i left the doorstep
the trees bare
nothing here
pure air
and time stops

I haven’t been paying much attention to the web for some time now. Life is busy. But here I am, back again. Along with the launch of my *new* portfolio website, I thought it would be nice to try the blog world again.

The title: in papermaking, the mold is a frame with a screen that suspends the pulp in a flat format and lets the water drain at the same time. The deckle has the same frame as the mold, but it has no screen. The mold and deckle are placed together to keep the paper held properly in place. The deckle edge, however, is not part of the deckle, but the rough edge of the paper. This rough edge used to be considered undesirable, but today it is often kept, especially on handmade paper and watercolor papers.

I decided to use this title because of the art connection and because of the roughness that it implies. It relates to my life quite well.