My meditation practice has really ramped up in the past month. My goal was to integrate simple yet effective meditation into moments when I could. Walking meditation, biking meditation, even a simple five minutes on my knees at work in the back storage area. Suddenly, everything is different now.

Perceptions and beliefs have changed perpendicularly. Anxiety is now capable of being overcome with raw immediacy, although, this is a skill that I am still improving. My capability to string together experiences without tire has grown. I can work a ten hour day, bike home in high gear, and then sit down for an hour and a half and work on artwork. I can wake up, meditate, and immediately dive into the place where creativity is most fertile.

Social interactivity and short-radius perspective have transformed from facades and illusions into more representative examples of their truths. Stripping away, stripping away, stripping away…

My current art work and it’s process, which provides an intense amount of excitement in my life, is to what I owe the bulk of gratitude for this transformation. The past three months have really been about “getting it,” the simple epiphany, the burst of light that suddenly reveals. Coupled with a positive attitude about leaving my Twenties, as I worked through my process of making Art, I began to realize what I was doing. I began to interpret my own work, and I began to see the correlation between subconscious revelation and physical construction. I began to get my self, to understand a level of Who I Was I had not yet approached previously.

I cherish this dynamicism I now possess. I feel grateful that through my discipline and concentration I have honed focus. And as this excitement in my grows, so too does my work, both in it’s own concentration of composition as well in size.

I am an artist. My name is Chris Rusak. I write text.
(text was how I used to vent)

I have finished three rather labor intensive collages that are all completely abstract. I have begun a fourth now, integrating several types of media. I have generally been focused on the deconstruction of my personal beliefs while working. I found a sledgehammer and I’ve used it. The sledgehammer worries me, though. It requires great strength and I might not be able to keep using it.

I feel as if we are unfairly indoctrinated as children. We are generally forced into the belief systems of our parents, whether it be religious tradition or racist epithets, delicate habits or unhealthy escapes. Our continual exposure leads us to believe it is normal; normal in that this is what everyone else should be doing.

This is a hard task, deconstruction, as the external beliefs and ideas have now become wallpapered into the structure. One cannot simply raze and rebuild because to do so would remove all boundaries for the energy contained. Instead, one must carefully peel away when the structure is strong, leaving only the designs that seem fit, and when the structure is weak, one must appreciate the supple bandage that has held things together but now infecting the site.

Some discoveries:

Mental thread gets really tangled quickly once the first snag gains tension. The spool unfurls, and like a feline pawing maniacally, everything becomes knotted and lace-like. Every so often when this occurs the only remedy is scissors, or something sharper, like the mighty pen.

Parents are more important than I ever figured. From the discovery of things that would become creative influence, to the first indelible memories of life, and the crutches and crosses one carries with them into adulthood. And, most of them are rotten. Which is very saddening yet highly reflective of the state of humanity.

Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe were (or are) the real Gilbert and George.

Why translates into how. Process transforms into product. Children become grown-ups.

Parenthesis are incredibly sexy.

Image is reception, not presentation.

This thought is at the forefront of my examination table. No matter how many ways we present ourself, no matter how much makeup we wear or which size cock ring we place in our crotch, image is defined by those who receive them and not by de facto presentation of the image itself. Mass marketing advertisements are either exciting or repulsive to viewers; the image is static, the receiver dynamic.

It is a terrible endeavor to become an artist. The metamorphosis is arduous. It is hard, it is not necessarily a dramatic outcry (although, it is simple in the midst of it to change it to such.) One must open up their thoughts and eyes simultaneously. Even if what one seeks to create is based in logic and analytics, emotion is not disconnected from these parts of the mind, and to excite the left is to excite the right.

An artist must learn, like phonics, through sequential failures and incessant repetition, how to receive and hear the images of living. What we seek to do is to present these images and ideas in such a manner that their reception possesses fidelity. There is no clear-cut answer, aside from blatant artistic equations, to convey. The distillation and reconstitution occurs discretely during production, but simultaneously while viewing. It is this chemistry of sight and feeling that is the tricky part. The instructions have never been transcribed because they are realized and not definable.

I think that sometimes in life we walk through the metaphorical house and open all the doors and windows. We seek to let all the wind travel through our vessel and bring in the dust and leaves and blow around all the objects and papers we have placed in their places. The same fierce wind we must bike into as we travel on our way home from work each night acting as heavy resistance on flat slopes that suddenly feel like steep grades.

While airing out the house is necessary, some doors get stuck, and it’s hard to close them once again. Sometimes we need to replace the doors and sometimes we need to tear down a wall and rebuild the house, so as to let the wind flow through in a more beautiful way. The doors and windows and walls of our house are what hold together our inner beauty and also what can trap it from the sunlight.

I feel as if, currently, I am dealing with a grey canvas. A canvas only grey because it is simply saturated with every color imagined. All hues in all tints and shades. Indiscernible chaos until closely examined. The smell of catharsis and major change blows in through the window like a barbecue in the neighbor’s backyard. A tired creak in the staircase is about to meet saw, drill, hammer and nails, and maybe even a little wood glue. The worn roofing is due to be replaced and the driveway is going to get new asphalt.

I came down with some sort of bug, the flu, a cold, who knows. So, the only time I’ve spent out of bed is behind the computer writing code. Again, every intention of working in the studio today was flushed down the drain by this overwhelming headache, eye & sinus pressure, and overall muscle ache. Sigh. How frustrating to get sick right before you’re ready to go. This fucking sucks. But go look at the new artwork. Now, it’s time for a hot bath.