What I should be working on

I should be taking that big pile of stuff and assembling it into a complete product. But I'm not. There are a couple reasons for that, but the two big ones I are I am not sure how big a block of time I need, and I am reasonably confident my kids will want to "help". I haven't thought of a safe way to involve them yet.

I figured a could make a picture of it first though. Since I wanted more than a pure "record" shot, I decided to try light painting. What did I learn? I learned the white balance for my flashlight fits the Incandescent setting almost perfectly. I also rediscovered where my remote release hides in my camera bag.

Getting the pieces was a bit of an adventure. I managed to get two credit cards "halted" by the banks until I called to unblock them. One handled the issue much better than the other. The good one pushes you through to a person immediately after you type in the account information. The annoying one routes you through the normal call process, complete with the stupid voice-mail tree and really long wait that implies. The joys of real time data monitoring. I also am not completely happy they imply its entirely for my protection. I'm only liable for a small amount of fraudulent charges, my inconvenience was for their protection. Its almost okay, I realize they couldn't limit my liability without being so aggressive. But its still pretty annoying.

What else have been doing?

Painting up a tiny little X-wing model. Its fun.

I read a few blog posts wondering what "art" was. A comment there cemented an idea that I've been throwing about in my head. The essence of the comment is that "art has become self-aware, and much "art" today is so much navel gazing, and of no value or meaning." He went on to explain that our "real" art is being done for TV, commercials, cinema, ads etc -- not art for art's sake. I know just enough about art-history to see some truth in this view, but not enough to know if it can be made a blanket statement. Any thoughts?

Maybe that is why most of the stuff I like today is being done by people who use the term "creatives" for themselves, and not "artists"?

Well, except for comic book artists. But, comics don't navel gaze too much.