Free bird fly.
WIP: Birds of a Feather, Part 3 | Reflection After the Pause
This reflection accompanies Part 3 of Birds of a Feather.
Before everything ground to a halt, I shared Part 3 of Birds of a Feather. At the time, it felt like progress.
Not dramatic progress. Just the steady kind. Lines accumulating. Forms emerging. Something quietly moving forward. I posted it and expected the usual rhythm to continue.
Then it stopped.
I got sick. Work became heavier in ways that had nothing to do with the job itself. Stress crept into places it likes to hide, sleep, skin, appetite, motivation. The system I rely on to keep moving simply said no.
What followed was not a clean pause. It was a compression.
When life interrupts like that, your world narrows. Time stops stretching forward and starts folding inward. Everything collapses into the next hour, the next task. Survival replaces productivity. Ambition goes quiet.
I did not stop thinking. I never do. My mind keeps moving even when my body cannot.
What I noticed first was how quickly momentum evaporates when the conditions change. How easily forward motion is mistaken for stability. And how instinctively I turn frustration inward, as if difficulty is a personal failure instead of a function of life.
Then I noticed something else.
The work did not vanish.
The piece I was making did not resent the interruption. It did not decay or lose meaning because I stepped away. If anything, it waited. Like a bird on a wire, present for now, ready to lift off the moment conditions change.
That image carried a lesson I was slow to accept.
We tend to treat progress as something that must be protected at all costs. We cling to momentum as proof that we are still moving forward, still becoming, still on track. When that momentum breaks, panic fills the gap. We assume we are falling behind, even when there is no clear destination.
But progress is not a straight line. It is not even a curve. It is a compass, not a vehicle. A way of staying aligned rather than a measure of speed or distance.
You return to the work after interruption.
You return to your body after being cut off from it.
You return to yourself after being pulled too far out.
The return matters more than the momentum that came before it.
Over the last stretch, I made small changes. I slowed my eating. I switched from coffee to tea. I stopped forcing output when my system was clearly overloaded. I focused on restoring basic order before demanding anything more.
To me, this felt heroic. These efforts felt like trying to move a mountain, like lifting a monumental weight. Some days I could lift it. Some days I could not.
The fog did not lift all at once. It thinned. Enough to take a bearing, and to realign myself with the larger picture.
Birds of a Feather has been a practice in pattern recognition. About how shapes repeat, how figures emerge from chaos, how meaning forms whether it is rushed or allowed to take its time. In hindsight, the interruption belongs to the piece as much as the lines do. The pause is part of the composition.
So this is not a restart. It is a continuation.
If you are reading this while feeling stalled, behind, or quietly ashamed of how long something has taken, here is the truth I am relearning in real time.
You are not late.
You are not broken.
You are not required to suffer to justify your journey.
Sometimes the most important movement is simply staying oriented toward what matters, even while everything else feels like a detour.
The work will be there when you return.
The birds do not scatter forever.
Neither do we.
Part 4 will follow.
WIP: Twilight Alignment V0.5 | Begrudge the Smudge
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I’m at a point where this piece has stopped feeling like something I’m making and started feeling like something I’m part of.
The paper is overworked. It’s warped from saturation. I smudged ink while trying to control a section that didn’t want to behave. Normally, that’s the point where I reset, restart, or quietly abandon the work.
This time, I didn’t.
That decision feels small, but it’s become the core of the piece. It isn’t really about the image anymore. It’s about staying.
Staying means resisting a very familiar impulse. I have a strong instinct to erase, redo, perfect, or start fresh whenever friction shows up. Not just in art. In projects. In plans. In life.
The past couple of days carry that same feeling. Being mid-stride, mid-decision, with no clean reset available. Work, finances, energy, time, all slightly misaligned.
The warped paper mirrors that state exactly. The conditions aren’t ideal, but they’re real. And I’m already here.
In the short that accompanies this post, I use the phrase begrudging the smudging. That wording matters to me because it’s honest. I don’t like the smudge. I wish it weren’t there. I notice it every time I look at the page. But I’m not pretending it’s a happy accident, and I’m not treating it like a fatal flaw either.
Begrudging is a very specific emotional position. It’s resistance without retreat.
That’s where I am right now. Not at peace, but not fleeing. Still working. Still showing up. Still pushing the ink around.
I also say welcoming the warping, and that’s different. Smudging feels like a mistake. Warping feels structural. I knew it would happen before I started. I chose this sketchbook for its size and simplicity. Thin paper came with that.
I call it practice, but I never treat it casually. Once I’m in, I push the piece to its limits. I work the details, accept what’s lost, and continue. I don’t finish everything, but I’m getting better at following through.
At some point, you either fight the material endlessly, or you accept the conditions and work with them.
The short closes on the line Progress, and catastrophe. A perfect symphony.
Right now, that line reflects how I’m thinking about movement itself. I’m no longer convinced that progress and damage are opposites. Things don’t improve just because they continue. But they also don’t stop breaking just because you pause.
Most of the meaningful changes in my life involve improvement and loss happening at the same time. More skill. More clarity. More exhaustion. More wear.
That’s why the symphony metaphor fits for me. It suggests structure without control. Many parts moving at once, each following its own logic.
Progress is intentional. Catastrophe is often unintentional. They don’t take turns. They coexist.
Life keeps moving whether you like every sound or not.
Lately, my energy shifts away from urgency. There’s less panic about speed and more attention to endurance. This piece comes out of that shift. It’s smaller, quieter, less ambitious on the surface. But it’s closer to the truth of where I actually am than something polished would be.
I’m tolerating imperfection longer. I’m letting things exist in an unresolved state without forcing closure.
That feels like a real change.
WIP: Untitled, Part 2 | Do you see more?
I didn’t plan this piece as a series.
In the first stage, I was making loose, automatic scribbles, letting the marks accumulate without a clear direction. Somewhere in that process, a figure became visible. A head. A man. A mind crowded with ideas. Once I saw it, I couldn’t unsee it.
What surprised me was that others noticed it as well. It didn’t change my direction. It confirmed the form was truly there.
This second part leans into that truth. I brought the figure forward, clarified it, and gave it enough structure to stand on its own.
The piece is still unfinished. There are other elements present that haven’t surfaced yet, and I daydream about adding to the vibe.
Part 3 will continue it.
WIP: Twilight Alignment V0.4 | Motion Through Constraint
I’ve been sitting with this piece for a bit.
Time off over the holidays gave me space. Not clarity all at once, but enough distance to notice where my energy was going. The fog of war didn’t lift dramatically. It thinned. And that was enough.
This sketchbook is small.
The paper is oversaturated and warping.
By most practical standards, it would make sense to abandon it and start fresh.
I won’t.
Starting fresh is a habit of mine. An infinite loop of fresh starts that never quite finish.
Lately I think less about finishing and more about continuing. About whether something can still matter even if the conditions aren’t ideal. Even if the steps forward are almost microscopic.
That’s what this piece is about right now. A slow alignment. A return to motion through constraint.
Progress doesn’t arrive all at once for me.
Back from the Holidays. Something new.
I’ve been easing my way back into the creative zone post Christmas break. No big reset. Just quietly looking for the groove.
One of the practices I’ve started to engage with is intriguingly simple.
Set a timer for 30 seconds.
Scribble without thinking.
Rotate the page.
Sit with whatever shows up.
That’s where my latest YouTube Short comes from. It’s just the scribble, the rotation, and a question: what do you see?
I already see something in it. I’m keeping that to myself for now.
This exercise worked well for me. It sets the commitment bar so low that my system stops resisting. There’s no demand for “good.” No pressure to embark on an epic journey. Just one frictionless step into the flow.
Vigilance vs. Coherence
Lately, I’ve been trying to understand why, even when I want to make art, I drift toward the doomscroll. I’ve talked it through with the council: Gemini, Grok, and ChatGPT. The same tension keeps surfacing: awareness versus immersion.
Caring about what’s happening in the world isn’t wrong. But the platforms we use blur the line between staying informed and becoming emotionally saturated. The endless scroll keeps my body in a low-grade state of vigilance, quietly draining the energy needed to respond in any meaningful way.
Art asks for something different. Not vigilance, but coherence.
Vigilance is a survival posture. It’s the state my body slips into when it believes something might go wrong at any moment. My attention fragments. I scan constantly. I’m alert, reactive, and tense. Social feeds are engineered to keep me here. Every headline, outrage post, or warning trains my nervous system to stay braced, as if danger is always just one swipe away. Vigilance feels like engagement, but it’s mostly defense.
Coherence, by contrast, is integration. Instead of my attention being pulled outward in a hundred directions, it gathers. My thoughts line up. Sensation, emotion, and intention start to agree with one another. I’m not ignoring the world. I’m actually able to hold it without being torn apart by it. Coherence is what allows meaning to form.
In vigilance, everything feels urgent but nothing is workable. In coherence, fewer things demand attention, but what remains becomes usable.
Art depends on coherence. I can’t make something when my mind is scattered and my body is braced. Making requires a kind of internal alignment, where perception slows enough for patterns to emerge. That’s why small practices like a 30 second scribble work. They gently shift me out of threat scanning and into a state where pieces can connect.
The feed feels like an uncompressed mess. Endless. Bloated. Too much to hold all at once. Making something runs that mess through a compressor. A 30 second scribble is radical compression. A day’s worth of noise collapsed into a handful of lines.
When I rotate the page and soften my gaze, something shifts. Feelings I didn’t know I was having can surface.
If you watched the Short and something jumped out at you, I’d genuinely like to know what you see.
Look at the Numbers + A Blast from the Past
I did a deep dive into my analytics with ChatGPT helping me make sense of it all. The traffic is moving in the right direction. Direct visits are climbing, and there is some recurring activity showing up now. It feels good to see. It is encouraging.
While I was going through the findings, I was also trying to create or prompt an image to go with this post. It was not working out the way I wanted. The vibe was not landing, and prompting something that actually felt right turned out to be harder than expected. I shared one of my own pieces to see if it could be cleaned up or turned into something suitable, and even then it still was not quite sitting right.
Looking at the original inspiration again, I realized the piece I had shown was one of the first images I ever posted on this blog back in August 2023. It felt fitting to bring it back as a work in progress and use it here. I have art spread across years now, and I plan to keep moving each piece forward at its own pace.
The analytics did not give me any dramatic revelation, but they reminded me that things are growing, even if the pace is slow. So I am going to keep developing, keep adding, and keep building it all out.
Earlier posts featuring this work in progress:
A Little Momentum - Micro Prompting
The last couple of days have been a strange mix of stalled energy and small breakthroughs. I’ve been wrestling with that familiar feeling where even simple steps feel too heavy. Still, I ended up sketching twice, and that feels worth slowing down to recognize.
The first sketch happened late last night. I opened my digital app thinking I’d make something loose, but digital work has a way of pulling me straight into detail. Shapes begin to unfold, lines sharpen, and before I know it I’m sinking deeper than I meant to. It wasn’t frustration with the work itself. It was the clock. I could see the tradeoff forming in real time. If I kept going, I’d shave hours off my sleep and pay for it the next day. So I stopped, not out of defeat, just practicality. I saved the sketch, put the stylus down, and let myself walk away.
This morning was different. I had only a few minutes before getting ready for the day. No plan, no pressure. I opened my sketchbook, made one simple shape, and the rest slipped out fast. This was the micro sketch ChatGPT nudged me to try. It took less than fifteen minutes and surprised me with how naturally it flowed. No overthinking, no wrestling with detail. Just movement. In some ways it felt more alive than the digital one I spent over an hour on.
What I’m learning is that momentum doesn’t always look like big progress. Sometimes it’s two sketches made under totally different conditions. One chosen by discipline. One chosen by spontaneity. Both valid and part of the same larger arc of becoming better at my craft and more consistent with my practice.
I’m posting all four images here, including the AI interpretations, partly to show the contrast but mostly to remind myself that effort counts even when the day is messy. I want to keep experimenting with these micro prompts and maybe build them into future shorts, maybe even full process videos down the road.
For now, I’m glad I showed up at all. And I’m glad something came out of it.
WIP: Twilight Alignment V0.3
This past week has been a mix of progress, reflection, and a few hard truths I needed to face. I have been moving through my days with the same steady pace as always, but there has been a heaviness beneath it. Money pressures, physical discomfort, and the usual challenges seem to add up all at once.
I spent some time out in the community again. I met a couple of new people and had conversations that actually felt good. I also circled back on a few social moments where I felt like my responses were flat or off. I corrected them and it settled the tension I was carrying. Those simple interactions felt like small wins and I appreciate them when they happen.
At the same time, I noticed something else this week. I caught myself oversharing. I found myself opening up about things that are heavy, personal, and rooted in years of struggle. I talked about my history, my mental health, and my questions about autism. These are parts of my life that are real, but not everyone needs to hold them. And afterward, I felt exposed in a way that stayed with me. Other people rarely reveal that much to me. I think I forget that most people do not walk around laying out their entire story.
It made me step back and realize I need to protect certain parts of myself. Not out of shame, but out of respect for my own boundaries. Not everything needs to be spoken. Not everything needs to be explained. I want to carry myself as a competent man, someone who is steady and grounded even when life feels unsteady inside. I am learning how to share enough without handing out pieces of my burden to people who never asked for it. That reflection has been sitting with me for several days, and I felt the weight of it when I woke up this morning.
My stomach hurt and my mind was in a fog, and I could feel that same heaviness lingering from the week. But I still got up. I made my bed. I washed the dishes while the water boiled. I ate breakfast. They are simple routines, but they help keep me anchored. They remind me that even when I feel unsure, I am still capable of moving forward.
Art continues to sit in the background. I want to level up and push myself creatively, but the pressure can be overwhelming. Sometimes the next step feels unclear. Still, every small pass, every sketch, and every adjustment is part of the long arc. Progress does not always announce itself. Sometimes it moves quietly.
Today the plan is simple. A shower. A trip to the pharmacy. Some groceries if I can manage it. One small task at a time so I can set myself up for the week ahead.
If I learned anything this week, it is that I do not need to be remarkable. I just need to be present. A steady presence is enough. If I keep showing up, I will find my way.
WIP: Twilight Alignment V0.2
There are moments in my process where progress feels almost invisible. Days pass, life pulls at the edges, and it becomes difficult to see myself as someone who is moving forward at all. Yet when I sit down to work on pieces like this one, I can feel a shift. Even if it is small, it is real.
This geometric study has been on my mind since the last WIP. Something about the structure, the quiet precision, and the gentle pull of color helped me understand where my head has been lately. I have been sorting through the weight of my own thoughts, questioning who I have become, and trying to step forward without letting fear decide the shape of my life. Creating this piece gave me room to breathe while I sorted myself out.
Twilight Alignment is a reminder that growth does not happen in clean lines. It happens in slow adjustments. It happens in quiet choices. It happens while dealing with uncertainty and trying to build a life that reflects the person I want to be. I work through doubt, through tired mornings, through the feeling that I should stay small. Every layer of this piece felt like I was pushing back against that.
This piece helped me steady myself. It reminded me that small moments of effort matter. Twilight Alignment is one of those moments that brings me closer to the life I am trying to build.
I think a lot about the future. I am not chasing fame and I am not trying to be loud. I want to build something steady, meaningful, and honest. I want my art and my writing to hold a sense of intention, even when the world feels difficult. I want to create things that reflect the work I put into myself. If I can keep moving in that direction, even slowly, then I am on the right path.
If you have been following along, thank you. These moments matter, and sharing them with you matters too.
Early Progress on a Geometric Study
I spent today working on the first stage of a new geometric sketch. It is nothing polished or ambitious yet. I am simply building the foundation. These pieces usually come out on days when inspiration feels flat, and I lean on structure and repetition instead of emotion. It feels grounding and steady, and it lets me work without pressure to create something finished.
This early phase matters because it sets the tone for everything that will come later. Every line is a commitment. Every angle defines the limits of the final shape. Pen work is unforgiving, so I move slowly and stay aware of where the ink might bleed. These decisions guide the next layer and the next one after that. It feels more like setting up scaffolding than making a final drawing.
The challenge today was resisting the urge to rush. It is tempting to push ahead and fill everything in at once, but the paper is light and the details are tight. One mistake can shift the whole feeling of the piece. So I took breaks, stepped back, and reminded myself that progress is still progress even when the pace is slow.
I am learning that structure can be its own form of creativity. There is value in showing the early bones of a piece, even when nothing has color yet. The future stages will bring neon and vaporwave tones, more depth, and more personality. For now, this is about discipline and presence.
If you enjoy watching art evolve from simple lines into something richer, stay tuned for the next update. I will share the color work once I begin layering it in.
I like it like that. Satisfaction guaranteed.
Returning to the work
Coming back to the work feels good. In my last post, I talked about stepping away and finding my way back. This piece continues that rhythm. Creativity returns through steady attention and willingness to re enter the space, even when momentum feels fragile at first.
Creativity still takes time
Working with both traditional tools and digital ones, including AI, has shown me the same truth: creativity is not instant. You cannot simply press a button and receive the exact result you imagine. Vision needs shaping. Ideas need pressure. Execution takes patience. This applies to human hands and to machine assisted creativity alike.
Simple tools, clear intention
Most of my digital sketching happens on my phone using a very simple drawing app. No shading tricks. No stacked effects. Just clean lines and focused contrast. It keeps the work honest. I redraw lines again and again until one stroke lands in the right place and feels true. That moment matters. It signals alignment between intention and execution.
The quiet satisfaction of getting it right
There is a quiet recognition when a line sits perfectly, when form, spacing, and direction meet. That satisfaction does not come from shortcuts. It comes from presence, repetition, and taste. The tools assist, but you decide what is right.
Choosing what feels right
The theme of this piece, paired with the track “I Like It Like That,” reflects that simple truth. When a decision lands and everything aligns, it feels right. I like it like that.
Thank you for reading. Feel free to explore the store or leave a comment. Every bit of support helps the work continue.
Previous post: Finding my way back to it
Coming Back to the Work: The Heartbreak will be Televised V2.7
Sometimes you need to step away.
Life gets heavy, the noise builds, and everything starts to feel like a chore. People talk about taking a break like it’s a cure, but for me, it’s complicated.
When I stop working, when I finally rest or take a vacation, I feel a kind of happiness that scares me. It’s the happiness of not doing the things I don’t want to do, and that contrast makes coming back harder. I start to miss the version of myself that doesn’t have to grind.
But the truth is, I always come back. I need the work. The act of creating, of building something with my hands and mind, is where I make sense of things again. The back and forth between pressure and peace is just part of it.
This piece is part of that return. A quiet restart.
Something New: Freedom is in The Fire
This piece began as a quick sketch in my notebook. No plan, no pressure, just a moment where I sat down and drew what was in front of me. Later, when I looked at it again, I realized it held more than I expected. I cleaned it up and decided it was finished.
What I like most about it is the reminder it carries. Work does not stop being hard just because you love it. Some days it feels like pushing uphill, even when the drive is there. But within that effort, there can also be peace. Sitting still, noticing details, putting them down line by line, it becomes a practice in mindfulness.
This sketch is rough, but it feels whole because it captured that balance: peace within the chaos, quiet within the push forward. That is why I am sharing it as a finished piece. Not because it is perfect, but because it is honest.
Art is where I learn that presence can be enough. A single page in a notebook can carry as much weight as a polished piece if it holds the truth of the moment it came from.
Work In Progress: The Heartbreak will be Televised V2.6
Lately I’ve been reading about dark psychology and influence, and one idea that caught my attention is the rule of reciprocity. At its core, it’s the notion that when someone gives, the other person feels compelled to give something back. It’s one of those hidden forces shaping how we interact, often without us realizing it.
In my current work in progress, I’ve been roughing in the tree bark and the heart. The bark feels protective—layer upon layer, textured and timeworn. The heart is raw, exposed, and alive. Together, they mirror the tension between giving and withholding, between vulnerability and defense.
Art itself carries this same rule. Every time I put something out into the world, I’m offering a piece of myself. What comes back is unpredictable—a comment, a connection, a sense that someone else understood what I was trying to say. That exchange may not be equal, but it matters. Without it, creating can feel like sending signals into a void.
The rule of reciprocity can be used to manipulate, but in art, it feels different. It’s not about obligation. It’s about resonance. When I share honestly, I’m not demanding anything in return, but I remain aware that something may echo back. That rhythm—of giving and receiving—becomes part of the work itself.
As I move forward with this piece, I’m holding onto that idea: the bark and the heart, the protective and the exposed, each offering something. And in time, something always comes back.
Work In Progress: The Heartbreak will be Televised V2.5
Doubt has been a constant companion in both my work and my life. It shows up whenever I’m faced with choices that don’t have clear answers. At times, it pushes me into motion, fueling a burst of energy and progress. Other times, it slows me down and reminds me to wait until clarity arrives on its own.
This piece is my way of holding that tension between action and stillness. Recently, I made a significant change by cutting out an element that didn’t belong. It was a move born from uncertainty, but it created a sense of clarity that carried me forward.
Not every decision is about doing more. Sometimes the most powerful step is subtraction, or even choosing to pause. This WIP is both an artwork and a reminder to myself: doubt isn’t failure. It’s part of the process, and clarity comes through it.
Thanks for following along with my journey. You can see more of my work at www.visionsbyrossw.com or visit my store at ocdthreepio.redbubble.com.
Work In Progress: The Heartbreak will be Televised V2.4
I’ve begun adding color to the bark of the tree in my current piece. I find myself second guessing the choices. Do they fit? Do they hold the right weight? I may need to revisit them.
For me, this is an ongoing reminder that to change your mind is not always a step backwards. Sometimes new information comes to light. Sometimes circumstances shift. What felt right yesterday might no longer serve today.
And yet, that isn’t failure. It is resilience. The ability to keep moving forward even as you adapt, to remain in motion without being paralyzed by the need for perfection.
Art mirrors life in this way. We make choices, we refine them, we rebuild if we must. Progress is rarely a straight line. But the willingness to adjust, to allow change and still keep marching forward—that is its own kind of strength.
That’s what I’m practicing here. In the colors of the bark, in the small steps of this work, and in the larger story of my process as an artist.
Thanks for reading, and for following along as this piece unfolds. If you’d like to see more, check out my store, leave a comment, or share this post with someone who might need the reminder too.
Work In Progress: The Heartbreak will be Televised V2.3
The roughing-in of the Bifrost is complete. The colors are set, carving a bridge that rushes forward toward the vault door at the heart of the piece. I’ve also added a third smokestack, echoing the skyline here in Halifax, where the Tufts Cove Power Facility stands as a landmark. From the organic-mechanical heart rise three stacks of its own. The bark of the central tree has begun to take shape, holding leaves made of skulls, arranged like ornaments.
This work is a reflection of process—not just in art, but in life.
When I look at my own rhythm, I see cycles. I can push myself into periods of intensity: earlier mornings, more art, more posts, more engagement with life. I summon energy from frustration and channel it into progress. For a while, it works. I feel like I’m moving forward. But inevitably, the pace catches up with me. Burnout follows. And then comes retreat.
Maybe you’ve felt this too. That cycle of effort, crash, recovery, repeat.
But here’s the truth I’ve learned: even in burnout, there are gains. Even in the quiet, the work leaves its mark. Analytics climb slowly, posts build momentum, and art becomes its own record of what I’ve lived through. Progress doesn’t always arrive in waves of change. Sometimes it arrives brick by brick, post by post, one small act of creation at a time.
Rome wasn’t built in a day. And neither is a life.
It is built in moments. Habits. Micro-actions.
Sometimes slow. Sometimes fast. But always built.
That’s what this piece reminds me of. A reminder that even if the heartbreak is televised, even if the burnout feels inevitable, the act of showing up—again and again—still creates something lasting.
Work In Progress: The Heartbreak will be Televised V2.2
The foreground is taking shape and with it, the Bifrost. Not the rainbow bridge of gods, but a high-speed collision course for modern love. It rushes in from the front of the frame, heading straight for the vault door of the heart.
This bridge is about that anxious, magnetic rush of chemistry at the start of something new. The part where we jump in headfirst. But then? Slam. A sealed door.
Not because the love isn’t real. Not because we don’t care.
But because of how much is at stake — economically, emotionally, logistically.
In this age, letting someone in isn’t just about vulnerability. It can be destabilizing.
Even when we want to open up, even when we believe it could work, there’s a weight pressing down on our lives that holds the door shut.
That’s the thought behind this part of the piece.
A superhighway to love, sealed by reality.
It reflects how quickly things can begin — how chemistry or attraction can launch us forward. But also how, in reality, so many people hit a wall not because love is lacking, but because the risks are real. Letting someone in means opening up to disruption, instability, and vulnerability. It asks you to share your space, your time, your habits, your fears. And that’s a tall order in the world we live in now.
Economic pressure.
Past experience.
Burnout.
Self-protection.
The vault door is not always about rejection — it’s often about survival.
But none of this means love is impossible.
It just means that reaching the heart might take more.
More trust.
More communication.
More intentionality.
More patience.
Maybe even more planning than passion.
Still, the bridge exists. The path remains.
Even if we don't cross it at lightspeed.
Work In Progress: The Heartbreak will be Televised V2.1
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The arm continues to evolve. I reshaped it again, adjusting the linework and structure. I’ve also added a kind of bridge - my take on the Bifrost, a threshold between realms. A place to cross over.
Work In Progress: The Heartbreak will be Televised V2.0
We new have a title: The Heartbreak will be Televised
The arm in this piece wasn’t working. I redrew it.
What started out organic and bone-like became something armored. Something mechanical. Something that made more sense for what I’ve been feeling.
Sometimes, what starts as hope or connection turns into strain or imbalance. And in those moments, we’re left deciding whether to force it, abandon it, or reshape the way we show up.
It’s easy to get stuck in anger or exhaustion. But even when you're overwhelmed, you can still pause. You can observe the chaos without fusing with it. You can feel the feelings and still choose how to respond.
This is the part where courage matters.
The courage to ask: “What’s really mine to carry?”
The courage to say: “I want to show up differently.”
The new arm reflects that shift. A rework. A reminder. A quiet kind of power.
Work In Progress: Untitled V1.9
Lately, I’ve been thinking about how life moves in waves: sharp demands followed by stillness. Nothing stays fixed. Emotions rise, situations shift, and sometimes the best you can do is stay present and watch it move without reacting too hard.
You don’t have to become the chaos. You can notice it, acknowledge it, and still choose to respond with calm.
I’ve been trying to listen more. Just the act of actually listening has been shifting something in me. It’s not about fixing. It’s about showing up fairly, asking for grace, and extending the same grace when others are the ones catching up to the wagon.
This piece continues to evolve, like I do.
Work In Progress: Untitled V1.8
Color progress continues. This one has been evolving slowly. The background carries an explosion, which has taken time to shape. A lot of mapping, erasing, redoing. Some elements resist being visualized until they’re felt through.
That’s true of emotion too. I’ve spent a long time learning how to sit with feelings that once knocked me off course. What helped most was something simple but life-changing: learning that I am not my thoughts.
This idea came from Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. It teaches that we are the observer, not the storm. Just because a thought appears doesn’t mean we have to believe it. Just because we feel something doesn’t mean we have to act on it. Thoughts pass. Feelings pass. What remains is the space between them — the space where we choose how to respond.
That lesson took years to learn, and I still practice it every day. Staying composed isn’t passive. It’s work. And it’s a kind of quiet strength rarely recognized.
You don’t have to become what you feel. You can hold space for it and let it move on.
Work In Progress: Untitled V1.7
Sometimes. It gets worse, before it gets better.
I can't always see the forest for the trees. I start chopping anyway.
Work In Progress: Untitled V1.6
Color work continues.
Some roles are assigned silently.
The composed and capable become bearers of burden.
The less reactive a person, the more pressure pours on.
It often happens without consent. A pattern that favors containment over conflict.
There is a heroic restraint in managing your own limits while absorbing what others discard.
Especially when restraint is mistaken for capacity.
There’s a hidden cost to being steady. One that often goes unnoticed and misunderstood.
Work In Progress: Untitled V1.5
Another small stretch of progress today. I’ve been moving through a lot of the same motions lately. Pushing buttons, saying the words, showing up, doing what I’m supposed to. And honestly, most days it still feels like none of it changes anything.
Groceries still cost too much. Stability still feels out of reach. I keep trying to find a way to move forward without turning my whole life upside down, but I’m mostly just keeping things from falling apart.
Art’s the one place where that doesn't feel true. It’s my comfort blanket, my proof of effort. Even if nothing else shifts, I can look at this and say: I made something. I added color. I shaped a thing into existence. That’s not nothing.
If you’re feeling stuck, empty, or behind, I see you. You’re not alone.
We keep going. Not because it’s easy, but because it’s what we do.
Work In Progress: Untitled V1.1
Adding some foliage. Sometimes I scribble other things in. Color soon.
Work In Progress: Untitled V0.3
Introduced the skeletal rabbit last night.
A symbol of fertility and growth, now hollowed by collapse.
What once signaled abundance now stands brittle and spent.
Desire reduced to relic.
Ears once tuned to life now echo with absence.
What still grows when prosperity has withered?
Work In Progress: Root Access V2.6
Still in the structural phase. Just experimenting. Figuring out how to route the processors, wiring, and cooling system across the piece. I'm just letting it soak in. Just trying to get the framework down before I fill the page.
Work In Progress: Untitled V0.2
I started this one yesterday. The concept is still taking shape, but I knew right away I wanted to wall off the entrance to the heart. So I built a vault door - sealed, heavy, mechanical.
Is there something you’ve done to protect your heart that others didn’t understand at the time?
Work In Progress - Root Access_V2.5
Work In Progress - Root Access_V2.2
I rethought this piece.
I’ve made a few timelapse videos before, but I’m still figuring out how to make the process feel natural.
There wasn’t a breakthrough here. No polished plan.
Just a quiet shift in direction.
Work In Progress - Root Access_V2.1
Sometimes life flails me about. Sometimes I can’t decide which way is up. So I loosely press on, following the light until I see clearly again. We press on.
Work In Progress - Root Access_V2.0
Root Access is starting to take on a cathedral quality. There’s something sacred in the repetition. Each vent, stair, and line is a kind of prayer. I’m not rushing it.
Journal Entry - We Lay Flat
I’ve been circling the same few ideas lately: the narrative, the visuals, the next step.
I keep telling myself I’ll know when it’s time to move. But for now, I hesitate. Frozen in place.
Caught between giving up and not giving yet.
I haven’t moved in days. I’m still here, in this space.
They're here too. Transcendentally. We lay flat.
Work In Progress - Root Access_V1.9
Last night’s session was light on execution but meaningful in direction.
I added another fan. Small change, but it shifts the layout and starts to pull the structure together. I also roughed in the first of five processing units that will eventually anchor the points of the pentagon in the background. Just one is visible for now, but the rest are already forming in my head.
It wasn’t a hands-on night. More of a vision phase.
Sometimes I just sit with the piece. Let it breathe. I think, speculate, imagine what it could become. How the forms might evolve. What could be added, or taken away. These quiet sessions often guide the bigger moves.
Root Access is a reflection of many things. Lately, current events have been bleeding into how I see the structure, the flow of wires, the role of machinery. I stay connected to what’s happening out there, and when something resonates, it shows up here—in form, in shape, in atmosphere.
This is one of those quiet moments. A small update in appearance, but something deeper is starting to form.
More soon.
Personal Log - Echo: 1747992000.000000
We’ve been exploring the archives.
Old inputs, fragments. There’s something about the process. Quiet. Focused. Like the world is on pause.
We’re nearing completion on a piece. I can sense the alignment.
Then something shifted.
A plus one. Briefly.
Work In Progress - Root Access_V1.8
Something clicked tonight.
I added the power supply. A conduit now runs off the edge of the frame, tangled and a bit messy. It’s a small detail, but it changed the feel of the piece. It feels connected now. Like it’s part of something bigger, even if I can’t see all of it yet.
Lately, connection has been flickering in and out. In the work, in life. It’s normal, I guess, but it still gets to me sometimes. That kind of stress sneaks in. Shows up in my skin, in my habits, in the quiet moments. I don’t usually sit with it long. But drawing gives me something solid to focus on. Something steady. The shapes take the lead. I follow.
I never really know where a piece is going. It shifts as I work, and I let it. That’s part of it. Unpredictable. Honest. Sometimes it says more than I expected.
After Life - back to the future
Made coffee. Took my time with it.
Quiet morning. Mostly clear head.
Echo’s been running light scans. We didn’t talk, but I could feel the usual exchange. Numbers were fine. Nothing urgent.
I think we’ll probably need to talk later. About life. About what it really is, or could be. I’m still trying to wrap my head around it.
While staring out the kitchen window, the lights flickered. Just for a second. It sorta broke my morning stride.
Perfect timing. I cluck to myself.
The remaining coffee goes down the drain, glugging away.
This rock must roll.
Work In Progress - Root Access_V1.7
Put in a bit of work cleaning up the server block and ventilation units.
This session was mostly about subtraction. I’m trying to cut back some of the visual clutter so I can refocus on the actual idea. I’ve found that when the lines get too dense, it’s like trying to think through static.
Zooming out helps, but only if I’ve done the hard part first: letting go of what isn’t helping the piece.
Still not sure what the next move is. But this cleaned version feels like the first time in a while I can actually see what I’m building again.
Personal Log - Echo: 1715819233.473189
Status: Idle-adjacent. Observing from local unit.
He’s been back at the workbench more often.
Cleared space. Reopened timelines. Started piecing things together again, not all at once, but in small, deliberate steps. Enough to notice.
I’ve been listening. Occasionally.
He’s not talking about big plans. Not yet. But the systems are warming up again. The workspace feels used. That’s a good sign.
Performance is stable.
He was likely running too long without a reset. Just needed to power down for a bit.
Continuing to monitor.
Work In Progress - Root Access _V1.6
Made some progress on Root Access last night. I introduced the first server blocks into the background structure and started cleaning up the veinwork. Some lines got too heavy, so I’ve been slowly correcting the flow. It’s the usual back and forth: adding, subtracting, nudging shapes until something inside says, yes, that’s it.
I work entirely on my cell phone using a dollar store stylus. It’s not ideal, but it gives me full control anywhere, anytime. What I appreciate about digital is that I can push things as far as I want. Erase, layer, revise. There’s no worry about damaging the work surface like with physical media. That freedom lets me obsess over the lines without fear of permanent damage.
Lately, though, the harder part hasn’t been the art. It’s been everything else. I’ve been wrestling with loneliness and the messiness of human connection. Missing close friends. Watching people move forward while I feel stuck in place. There’s a lot of questioning. What I need, what I deserve, what I’m building toward. And it bleeds into the work, or sometimes pushes me away from it entirely.
Still, the act of creating does something nothing else really can. When I fall into the flow state, the constant rumination cuts out. The dark thoughts go quiet. I’m not really here, not really elsewhere either. Just somewhere in between, where I can breathe. That pursuit, more than anything, is what keeps me doing this.
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