Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Relativity

"Time is an illusion.  Lunch time doubly so"
I know I quote Douglas Adams a lot, but he had such a way of delivering simple, everyday things to you in a manner that made you rethink them.
Like the  relativity of time.
I'm not talking about Einstein.  I'm talking about how time is relative to your amount of engagement in any certain activity.  Ask any child who's been out playing with friends or is wrapped up in a video game and you'll invariably get a level of perceived time dilation rivaling the event horizon of a black hole.  My son will play a game for an hour (max) and will swear that he's only been at it for "five whole minutes, Dad.  Jeesh".
He actually makes a sound like "jeesh" more than he actually says it.
Time flies when you're having fun.  And even when you're not.  I've recently gone from knee deep to eyeball deep in an IT project for my day job.  Embroiled is a good word I think.  It's an enormous amount of pressure that sprung up from a rather unexpected angle.  It's funny tho.  How time flies and slows down all at once when you're in a crisis mode.  Things are flying by at a daunting pace and yet somehow it all passed by you like bullets in The Matrix.
I don't necessarily dodge them like Neo however.  That's how it is when you're not protected by script immunity.  It's a level of engagement that I haven't had in a while.  It's hectic and time is flying, but in a perverse way it's fun sometimes.
Not all the time.
That's come along with a lot of work on the current projects.  There's a soft deadline looming, but the time dilation's kicked in and I'm starting to envision the pieces in a different way.  I've gotten more engaged in them.  I've put down some underpainting on two and am starting to work on the successive layers.  I'm heading down there in a little bit actually.  I'm working in an every-other-night rotation in different areas of each piece.  As soon as I get the next image green-lighted I'll start putting down pencil and will begin canvas number three, Chicago or Toronto.  I'm sure at some point I'll be working on them all at once.

Here's where the fun part comes in.  Looks like I'll be going to Dublin and London to get photos for myself.  I'm really looking forward to it.  I haven't been to London since I was a teenager and I've never been to Dublin, but have always wanted to go.  Simply put.... Fanf@ckingtastic.
Hey, this is a family show.
I plan on taking about a bazillion pics and touring the Jameson distillery.
And NOT kissing the Blarney Stone.
If you live in either of those places and want to get together for a meal or a pint keep your eyes peeled.  I'll be posting pics the entire time.


Cheers,

R

1 comment:

Caroline Peña Bray said...

Loving these works, Rob, esp. the second one. And your idea on time dilation!

You'll LOVE Dublin, it's one of my favourite cities, be sure to see Bacon's studio and do the Literary Pub Crawl, huge fun. Also check out the Historical Walking Tours of Dublin provided by postgrads of Trinity College (historialinsights.ie). By far the best guided tour I have ever done - truly fascinating. Have fun!