20-20 Hindsight aceo

20-20 Hindsight aceo
Originally uploaded by popcornfeet

How many times have you kicked yourself for saying something when you should have bitten your tongue? How many times have you hit send instead of rereading that hot tempered email just once more? How many times has what you done in haste come back to bite you in the ass?

Many, probably.

The sad thing is we never seem to learn. Well, lots of us.

I took this picture in Cape May, NJ and I thought I was taking pictures of a non-discript area of the hotel. A glass-enclosed outside walkway. There was enough light because the sun was just setting ...so I was shooting pictures but not paying much attention to what I was doing (typical).

When I got them on my computer I was shocked. Not only couldn't you see much of the hallway but you could see the blazing sunset reflected in the glass. Had I been paying attention at all, I might have noticed. When I was walking away had I turned and looked over my shoulder I definitely would have noticed because I would have seen the bigger picture. But when I was shooting I was so hyper focused on the hallway beyond the glass I didn't even see the sun setting on the window....in fact I didn't even see the window.

I have a feeling that when you shoot off your mouth... or email a letter you later (probably sooner) regret it's a lot like my not seeing the sunset. You get so hyper-focused on one thing you can't see the bigger picture. Even if its as big and bright and obvious as that sunset.

You feel hurt, or indignant, or put upon, or dissed, or angry...or what ever...fill in the word.... and you lose site of everything else. Like later for example. What will happen later? And how will you ever take the words back? And maybe you mean this now but will you in an hour? And how would you feel if your boss...wife... husband... daughter....Dr. Phil....Judge Judy....ever saw what you wrote? Cause you know it's going to make you look 'less than' not the person you wrote it about....

Supposedly hind-sight is 20-20 but maybe if you pay attention to experience forsight can be too?

bondage aceo

AVAILABLE SOON
bondage aceo
Originally uploaded by popcornfeet

Most people think that life's got them. That they are stuck... trapped in situations that they can't get out of... Hamsters on one those wheels.... In bondage to their jobs.... partners.... bills... obligations... wants... needs....

I think the truth is closer to what you won't let go of, chains you to it.

I think we spend our lives wishing for something else all the while dragging what we don't want around with us... always looking over our shoulders to make sure what we have and don't want is still there, wanting something else but never getting so far away from our comfortable misery so we can't see it.

I think there are a lot of reason people have for doing this ...probably as many reasons as there are people. Some people fear change and living in known pain is better than an uncertain future. After all we know how heavy the chains are... What will it feel like without them? What will we do with our hands? What will we do with all the time we spent complaining? I think Lily Tomlin was right when she said, "I personally think we developed language because of our deep need to complain. " People sure so love to complain!


I think some people really don't believe they can get off the hamster wheel and that dooms you from the start. If you think you can, you can and if you think you can't your right too. It's sort of the cosmic version of a pre-nuptual agreement. Sort of like your saying to the universe... Well I think I can sorta do it...probably... most likely.... but if I can't would you mind mitigating my damages? Might as well tattoo FAILURE across your forehead.

Plus there's a lot of letting go and trusting involved in getting what you want - from yourself and others and letting go isn't something most people find easy. I don't, anyway.

I think most of the stuckness in my life is me.


The card looks better than the picture - the card is uneven in height and very glossy so shooting it and scanning it is difficut. This has been an issue with any card Ive done that been a collage pretty much! This one is no different! The card is an aceo blank of mat board and a highly textured black paper (crinkly)... I only used one background paper and it looks like patent leather - its really cool. The chain is a silver plated small linked chain and it all bound there with thick acrylic sealer.

It's all so close to you ACEO

BUY

It's all so close to you ACEO
Originally uploaded by popcornfeet

I saw these stones when I looked down.... they were a few inches from my feet on a beach in Cape May, NJ. I almost just squashed them into the sand by walking on them and would never noticed how beautiful they were... How soft looking, how polished.... how worthy of notice.

Maybe it's always like that. Me. Life. Maybe I always assume what I want off in the distance.... and thinking what I need must be over that next hill.... and I know what will make me relax and appreciate what I have is in that newly published self-help book.

But maybe life is always like the experience with these stones. Maybe I already have within my view and reach everything I need. Maybe what's over the next hill doesn't matter because the only thing you really have is the presant... and maybe what's in that next self-help book really is the same thing that was in the last self- help book, with a new cover.

Maybe there is something to be said for living fully in the moment.

This card was done on mat board cut into aceo format. There is a collage done with art papers under the main image and its all sealed with multiple layers of acrylic sealers. I like this card, its pretty and calming.

Memories ac-Emo ACEO

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Memories ac-Emo ACEO
Originally uploaded by popcornfeet

You may not like all your memories but they make the whole of you.

In each person you know there are things you might not like but that doesn't take away from the value of the person - and the person is the sum of his parts.

As each person person you know deserves a place in your life each of your memories is worthy.

I've struggled with this.

For many years I'd assumed there were things I'd rather forget. But I can't say I'm sorry who I am, who I've become... who looks out from behind my eyes. How can I pick and choose the memories, than? If I lose this one will someone else be looking out from behind green eyes? Or will it take two memories? Or not those two but two others?

Many years later I can see the value in not fighting the memories. Coming to terms with them...letting them rest.... in peace.

The ghosts of the past ac-Emo ACEO

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The ghosts of the past ac-Emo ACEO
Originally uploaded by popcornfeet

How much stuff do we carry forward in to new relationships ? As much as we truly want to end one before we get into another I think most people keep tugging everyone they ever knew along with them...

People call it baggage but I've seen how heavy it looks on some people - I think it's stone.

Doorways...

I did a series of cards using lit doorways in dark places and dark doorways in lit places... I loved them. Their tension....

ac-Emo

ac-Emo
Originally uploaded by popcornfeet

Somethings been bothering me for a while now. My cards are different... The cards I do are so linked to what I write that they aren't just the artwork but more a sum of several parts.


The images click with me as emotions not just pictures. When I post or list them I always include the emotion as text. When people look at them I think they may be attracted to the image but it's the emotion that chimes for them.


I think people like them but I think it's more the whole experience of the emotion than the card itself. I've had good and bad feelings about this. Does that make me an artist? Or a writer? Or really not enough at either to be good enough to consider myself one without the other?


I think what's happening is that they are just different. They aren't just the cards or just the words but a compliation of the two. Like a movie would be just pictures moving across a screen without the emotion of words. I've decided I'm fine with it and decided to call them something different from now on.

JUST PASSING TIME ACEO

Time has a problem and a bad reputation. People blame a lack of it their failures but don't like an excess of time either.
If they only had the time to spend with their family...exercise... go back to school. If they only hadn't been so pressed for time they would never had chosen that job...that car.... that husband. Having lots extra time is seen as something that will get you into trouble... Too much time to fill is seen as a retired man who gets on every one's nerves... Too much time between where you are and what you want is seen as excruciating...

People talk in time... My biological clock is ticking. No time like the present. Time stands still for no one.... Idle hands are the devil's playground... A watched pot never boils. And on and on... I suppose there are sayings about time where slowing down and enjoying time is shown as a good thing - For example - Take time to smell the daisy's. But to be honest that one always reeks of 1960's Flower Children and doesn't really ring true to most people. I think they can see the value of it but not the practical application.

But the truth is time is a constant... it's your impatience that's the variable. And it's up to you to see the golden value in your time - to capture all your seconds and than file them away as memories. If you sit back and think about time, it's given you a lot. The passing of time gives you all the good things - all your good experience. Your joys. Your quiet moments between the fray.

Perhaps Memory's gift is gratitude but Time's gift is patience. If you take the two in tandem you can truly be a happy person.

Buy the ticket take the ride Aceo

buy

I've been thinking a lot about goals lately. Goals are good things;I find people flounder without them. But something about being goal-oriented has been bothering me a lot...

People to who focus on goals seem to over-focus on goals, there doesn't seem to be a middle ground. Either you let the wind takes you where it will and you'll end up in life where you do... or you map everything out and measure your success by each goal you meet.

To be honest - I'm not sure the first one isn't better. People who measure their lives from goal to goal achieve more in a measurable sense; that's true.... But what of the space between goals? What's there? What fills the space for those people if only the goals are important?

I can hear the goal- set saying , " The middle is important because I'm on my way to the goal..." But I keep thinking... What about enjoying life outside the goal? Your life is really what's happening around, outside, over and under you when your doing all that planning, reaching, or not reaching your goals. Your goals and your life aren't happening on parallel roads... Your life and your goals are on the same road.

I don't think having an idea about what you want next is a bad thing... it's just that I think you miss a lot of opportunities for enjoyment along your road if your always heading for something. If your always looking to a goal. An end. A way to get on the next train... To move on to the next thing.... To finish what your doing now... What are you doing?

It's sort of like buying your ticket but not taking the ride. Like being in an amusement park, paying for a ride and than instead of getting on it; walking around it to the place in the gate that says - EXIT.

It seems so pointless. And sad. And seems like the way so many people live.