David Eckard: Anxious Murmur

I had my camera stolen in Barcelone.

Not my new video monster but my Canon G9 still camera.

It was miraculously slipped out of my small, zipped “murse” (man purse as it’s known to the students) on the Metro.

I replay and replay in my head where and how it could have happened.

After the initial fit of rage and sense of yokel idiocy, I had to admit that the skill and covert quality of the act was incredibly impressive. The Metro was never that crowded and I always (I thought) had my thumb hooked on the strap with my hand cupping the bag. I was deeply fatigued and was still a bit sick from a very aggressive stomach bug and my inattentive sluggishness was obviously not lost on my liberator.

“Damn it, damn it, damn it…… I had just bought it and had finally figured out all of the bells and whistles and it was such  a hassle for my friends in Portland to ship it over and I paid such a heavy tax at customs and there were irreplaceable pictures of Carnac on it and …”

All of the focus I was putting on my “misfortune” and “tragedy” and “violation” was bluntly put into perspective when hours later the Student Coordinator and I received a call that the father of one of our students had just died. Here now was the actualization of one of the biggest fears we have of what could happen during these sessions.

It was heart breaking.

We got him on a flight home the next day and will fortunately be welcoming him back this week and hope we’ll be able to provide a safe place for his return.

So the day continued and as we all navigated our collective emotional whirlwind, a deep, surprising sense of engagement and lucidity was pushing its way into my head and heart.

Where had the rage gone?

We continued on to Gaudi’s incomparable Sagrada Familia and then to Park Güell to walk the eccentric paths and slip in and out of the undulating profiles of his fantastic porticos.  Here I felt my internal fixations begin to blossom out, slowly dissipate and be replaced with an unfamiliar sense of both empathy and comfortable insignificance.

An errant soccer ball slowly rolling through a patch of brilliant, raking sunlight pinned me to the moment.

Here I was, here we all were.

No more and no less.

Present

Absent

One breath

Slipping and tumbling through a tangle of lingering remorse and jubilant expectation with our daily assumptions teetering on multiple facets of chance, accident and circumstance.

A grand,  neurotic monument continues to be built, discarded beliefs and antiquated facades tumble and here we all sat as friends, strangers, lovers and criminals in a park sharing the same sun with new born infants incapable of yet knowing their potential and older couples at reluctant peace with the remaining turn of their days.

I want to thank the faceless, nameless spectre that slipped up to the boundary of my physical self and carried away the anchor and archived collecton of stillborn echoes of  spent moments captured but not deeply felt, documented but not greedily consumed. 

This unfelt gesture left me souvenir free, both alone with and connected to each nuanced whisper and blinding glint of the present.

97.5 kilos

loss of 8.5 kilos since December 19 

total loss in pounds 

18.739292! (not that I’m being obsessive….)

thanks for the inspirational images Sam!

at another image of #!@*%? cardboard tricks……..I mean

“…the visual illusions and sleight of hand of the “magician” are completely dependent on the planar/framed character of both the rendered proscenium and activated props. The rather absurd persona performs the tricks in a deadpan, pragmatic delivery barely contained in his claustrophobic, prop-cluttered spotlight. The illusions possess a dark undertone highlighting issues of deception, delusion, destruction and the problematic power of the showman.”

So I went through a ton of images I shot when I was in Paris with my brother (Dana) and my sister-in-law (Elly) and thought I’d post them. It was great spending time with them. They were incredibly generous and allowed me to pretend I knew my way around Paris!

I’ve been careening through some rather steep learning curves but have finished the majority of the editing for each of the chapters. Realizing my Etch-a Sketch wasn’t quite going to cut it, I immersed myself into the amazing complexities of Final Cut, dabbled into Live type and some Adobe sound program as well! 

Acquired an amazing collection of sound effects and they have added the perfect canned artifice to the piece. Chapter titles and a bit more tweaking and I may soon be seeing the digital light (pixel aspect ratio corrected of course…) at the end of the tunnel

Here is an assortment of stills pulled from the project.

simply…..wow

Well, the props have been deployed, the footage has been shot and I have close to three hours of high-def footage to wrestle into eleven tight illusions. Thanks to the incredible patience, diligence and eye of John Ofori (personal trainer AND videographer) I have some great imagery to work with.

Now it’s time to structure the chapters in a way that can elicit a larger connection across the individual moments and pare it to the necessary content. Smart titling, decent sound and smooth transitions are crucial to bring it to the engaging/intriguing/problematic presence it needs to have.

Put on the coffee and lock the doors……it’s editing time!

Here are a couple of new drawings I finished up a couple of weeks ago. 

A certain malaise has entered my days as the remaining bits of Pont-Aven novelty reveal themselves as known, predictable and repetitive. A small town is a small town wherever it’s located on the globe and as this hamlet’s “silent citizen”, I have experienced its limits.

Unfortunately, I’ve let the cultural and geographic boundaries of this town create a parallel sense of limitation within myself. I look at the calendar in disbelief and scramble to find the evidence in my studio of the spent time and the lived points of the cycled seasons. They are there, but seem formed in fits and starts existing on a surface unbroken by a commitment of focused time and skirting that next revelatory level a rigorous excavation could unearth.

I do acknowledge the reality of my administrative position and its seeming unlimited capacity to expand and fill any remaining energy or time I may have, but there is another reality I must face:

I’ve become lazy.

Soft.

Casual in my convictions and dismissive of my passions.

Ouch.

Rented movies on iTunes have replaced reading and studio time.

The conceptual concerns and creative challenges of the students have conveniently given me a decoy sense of engagement and accomplishment.

Exterior, facile concerns have muffled the interior wonder, peripheral discoveries, troubling surprises and deep solace a generous, caring embrace of self can elicit.

Add in the false promise of too much red wine and the vibrant spark of the dance becomes a dull hum, barely audible above the din.

But,

I had a fabulous 6 hours in the studio yesterday and felt the insulating funk slowly start to unravel.

I know this. I know what it takes.

I know what my studio deprivation does to me and how to prevent this numbing chasm from appearing between work sessions:

SIMPLY DO THE WORK

An hour here, two hours there and suddenly that momentum fuels a necessity to further dip into the recesses and echoes of my head and heart and revel in the unique ways that only I have to make sense of the world.

It is simple.

So coupled with my new physical regime, there will be a more gentle set of creative calisthenics to re-awaken a dormant sense of wonder, exploration, commitment and joy.

All of these resolutions and it’s not even the New Year! 

of my belly has started me on a new nutrition/fitness/discipline path.

As I look at starting my last term and finishing my time here in Pont-Aven, I want to set in place a routine that will get me in strong physical and mental shape before what I know will be a rather disorienting re-entry into the US.  It has been too, too easy to cloak “experience”, “exploration” and “spontaneity” in an unfettered banquet of wine, cheese and pastries.

106 kg. You do the math!

Health issues aside, it’s really about the vanity….

I’m tired of playing the “who’s the biggest person here?” game at club Le Starman (seriously, I couldn’t make up this place……and thank god for it!) and always winning. Shopping for clothes sends me to the very end of the rack or over to the “grandes tailles” section of the store only to have the breadstick thin store attendant look disdainfully down his razor sharp beak and mutter “Le Super Sized” under his cardio-fit breath.

When I return to PDX and inevitably run a personal ad……I don’t want “husky”, “thick”, “ex-football player type”, “beefy”  or any other Craigslist euphemism for fat to be leading the plea.

I’ll be realistic.

I’m no delicate flower and am certainly not expecting a Michael Phelps transformation but I do want to return and not have, “well (DAMN!), you seemed to have really enjoyed (eaten) yourself (now significantly larger than the last time I saw you) over there..” as my first greeting.

So, enter John Ofori.

John was a student here at PASCA a few terms back and is currently the intern. He’s a fantastic artist, generous soul and quickly becoming a good friend.

He has also agreed to work out with and whip me into shape.

Damn.

He’s half my weight, twice as strong and three times as limber…No excuses, no BS and a rigorous diet and exercise plan have already been put into place.

My fingers hurt as they tap the keys and I’m unable to raise my arms off of my lap.

I creak and shuffle like Walter Matthau (wait, he’s dead) like…Wilford Brimley over to the fridge to have an infant-portioned meal followed by…..nothing…….no éclair, no tarte citron, no crepe avec caramel…….

This is good?