How I Became an Artist

This is another story from my Honors Thesis. I'm putting together a graphic novel that is a collection of short stories from my magical childhood. Most of the time it was pretty magical, anyway.

I would say "Ha! What a silly child I was! Thinking I could make a living off of art," however it still seems I haven't gotten that notion out of my head. I do think I'v become a bit more sophisticated in my craft. Back then I used only crayons and computer paper.....though, looking at my desk I can't help but notice that next to my fancy laptop and my fancy tablet there is a box of crayons on top of computer paper...

Wow. I've made no progress since I was five.

Conan

I say this proudly-- I am a Conan warrior.

I started watching the Late Night show when I was 12, so for nearly half of my life I've been a fan. Was I allowed to be up that late when I was 12? No, but the show was definitely worth the risk of being caught.

As you can imagine, I was pretty upset when NBC created a true crapbomb situation and lost Conan. I know it's just a show, but it was a reliable source of laughter and that's not something to be taken lightly.

It's a bit strange I'm bringing this up now. All this happened a while ago, however, there is an article in the NYTimes about Conan's use of twitter and the internet to promote his tour. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/07/arts/television/07conan.html?ref=arts I think it's all sold out and golly do I wish I could go. If you are, you are so lucky. If you are and have an extra ticket and no other friends, I would love to pretend to be your friend for the night.

Anyway, all this reminded me of a doodle I did back when the airwaves and internets were brewing with the late night turmoil. I wanted my own Conan desktop, so I drew that up and put together his quotes. The first part comes from his farewell on the Tonight Show and the second part is from his wonderful letter to the people of the world.

Conan remains funny and classy, and I lot of people thinking they have to sacrifice the latter for the former.

Heteronyms

Firstly, it's been a long time since I've posted, and though I'm sure very very few (if any) people have missed me, I'm gonna stick with this blog thing. Yeah!

I'm back from Spring Break and onto the inevitable job search. Yikes. That's scary so let's step away from that. Unless you're reading this and want to offer me a job....(there are certain things I won't do)

Anyway, I'm taking Advanced Creative Non-Fiction this term and our first assignment was to come up with four heteronyms for our creative selves. Before I go into what I came up with for my own alter-egos, here are some of my favorite heteronyms of all time;

Ziggy Stardust

Screamin' Jay Hawkins

Lady GaGa

Tony Clifton

Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

Our professor gave us four different categories - Rock Star, Lightning Rod, Haunt, and Wild Card.

My rock star is FiFi Caruso, a drag queen. The drag queen part of my persona has be mentioned many times, so it seemed appropriate.

My lightning rod is the bleeding-est heart, annoying liberal part of myself. For those of you out there who are more on the conservative side, have no fear. I keep this part of me in check. It's best to be open, yeah? The ultra-liberal part of me is dying to tell you to check out the documentary Blue Gold- it's eye-opening and a must-watch. Okay. Back to the regularly scheduled heteronyms.

I picked an owl for my haunting persona. At times I can be a little distant and chilly, but I'm also very observant in my detached moments. Thus the owl.

Finally, the wildcard is the kid in me that never grew up (thank god!) You'll also recognize this little rascal from my in-progress graphic novel.

For class we wrote a bit about each of them and provided some sort of visual. This was mine.

Go forth and create your own heteronym. It's like the fancy shmancy, grown-up version of an invisible best friend. Put all the blame on them!