███████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████ ----- Pinned Area ----- For SF Bay Area Art Scene and current going ons: https://artboard.info/ ----- ******* ----- ----- Note Passing ----- @tsem Love this response, thanks for the note! Dignifying work as in work that makes you feel valued and contributing to society is tough to find today. I've never been to West Africa but your note seems really relatable and immediately understood to me in California. Maybe that constant fight against the tide is what makes us dignified? Love your site, you make good stuff - I hope your work brings you that stability, fulfillment and value that I immediately recognize in the quality of your writing+images. @jakewelch Hi - good note! I love this concept of a physical full feeling caused by abstract emotional responses to life interactions/work. I like this idea - like this success metric (disgusting corpo brain terminology sneaking into my everyday communication HELP) means that you check in constantly to see if you have reached this fulfillment state? I hope you find fulfillment friend (we are friends ?). ----- ******* ----- ███████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████ 8.25.2026 things i like: writing long emails seeing people deep in thought while riding train to work when the just for fun piece of art you were making suddenly becomes good falling asleep to a movie, wake up to a blue screen buy good figs for my wife 08.19.2026 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Franklin_effect Working hard for someone tricking yourself into thinking you like them, that's why you work so hard. "Maintaining consistency in [your] self-concept." is a really mfa brain triggering idea. Your corporate persona as working for you - identifying what is rewarding you at the company vs how you reward yourself for aligning to your own values in everyday life. How are you looking at success? To me right now, success means the ability to be curious and try things without the pressure of monetizing it. Even if its a small portion of the day, success means maximizing that time and increasing it, minute by minute, everyday. 08.18.2026 Visiting college friends in Sonoma county. Their son makes small lego sculptures from loose pieces, small little monoliths and shapes. He calls them robots and assigns names and personalities to them. It's really nice to step back and see really simple and honest pieces of expression from a 5 year old. https://imgur.com/a/rNKrgfv I met both his parents in the art department at college and they've sectioned off a large part of their kitchen as an art studio for him. We did a studio visit - he sat me down and showed me his tools - we did a lot of bits comparing his robots to Joaquín Torres-García sculptures. It sounds like we're making fun of it but we took it very seriously, fully attentive as he explains his methods. A work trip brings me to NY in September and I think I can swing some time to see some of the Torres-García sculptures in person at the MET. Really loving the 3D for the first time in my life. Need to make some robots. 08.14.2026 3 days off I've done a lot of chores. Lots of errands. All my machines running well. Can't find a specific power cord and its driving me to spring clean while I search for it - wacom why! soundtrack remembering 2019 and all these good ones: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7hYUx45apqa0AEJah9HiYN?si=e3bdd94c6af344e7