I'm not going to make this another journal about the 'love unites' contest. What I am going to make this journal about is some side thoughts that occurred to me today in the shower after reading various comments and journals about it.

Are we, a global community of artists uniting in the common vision of sharing our creations with the world at large, inclusive or exclusive?

Do we widely accept other artists for their range of talents in various mediums? Or do we exclude certain artists because of our moral/religious beliefs?

Let's expand on that for a moment. Were you ever bullied at school for being too short, too tall, too fat, too thin, too clever, too dumb, too geeky? Didn't feel good to be excluded did it? If you were bullied at school, for whatever reason, do you now find yourself more accepting of other people, or less so? Are you inclusive or exclusive?

Were you ever declined for credit? For a job? By a partner/girlfriend/boyfriend? Didn't feel good to be excluded did it?

As a community of artists, you would think that the community as a whole would be more inclusive. Given the fact that artists (on the whole) are more in touch with their feelings, their emotions, their creative outlets, you would think that they would be more accepting of other artists and people in general.

I was absolutely appalled and horrified to read many of the comments left on the news article about the contest, and also the comments left on the blog post at #hq. To find such absolute loathing and hatred against gay people amongst an art community quite honestly rocked me to my core.

I'm not going to make this about Shepherd Fairey and whether what he did or didn't do was right or wrong. As far as I'm concerned, that's for a court of law to decide. Not a public hanging at noon by popular opinion.

I just find it extremely saddening that there are so many people so filled with hate and bigotry amongst this community. It doesn't feel good. At all.

As @leaf-lover stated however, it is rather uplifting to see many people with religious beliefs being in support of the contest and its ideal, and being of their belief that their god is about love (inclusive) rather than hate (exclusive). It's heartening to know that those people are out there, spreading the good word.

At the end of the day, we are all humans. We all have hopes and dreams and aspirations. We're all trying to make it through this world in whatever shape we can. Can't that be enough?

I think from all this, I've really only come to one conclusion. I think 'love unites' is perhaps the wrong phrase. Because quite clearly, this community has shown that it doesn't. At all. I think perhaps a better phrase would be 'love should unite'.

That's really what it's about. Trying to find a way through this with love. Love for your fellow man and woman, regardless of what gender they are, regardless of what sexual preference they are.

Can we try to be more inclusive? It's the 'feel good' way to live.

Time for another update I guess.

Work is still... work. I have one more day in despatch then it's back to reception. The challenge has been good, and I've definitely enjoyed working with the despatch crew. They've been looking after me and fixing up my fuck-ups (nothing too major thankfully). They definitely do a pretty thankless job, and how the hell the guys manage to manually stack up 100-odd pallets a day of juice cartons (average pallet = 72 cartons) is beyond me. I'd be buggered after the first pallet. But that aside, they're a great bunch of people and I've enjoyed my time along side them.

We knocked over some aerial photo jobs over the long weekend, new photo's up on our site if anyone is interested in having a peek. I'm really happy with the Port of Napier shots I took, particularly gorgeous day and the sea was just this amazing blue colour. Very cool.

As for DA, I'm trying to get back in the swing of commenting more - had a crack at a few deviations tonight, even got so carried away that I posted a critique. I've been seriously lacking in the 'supporting your fellow deviants' area for a while since I'm still more devoted to chat than anything. But I'm trying to correct the balance, so hopefully you'll be hearing a bit more from me in future times.

I was cruising around the site tonight, getting reacquainted with some things, and wandered into the back area of my prints account. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that over my time here, I've sold 34 prints. Now I know to some people reading this, that amount is going to seem incredibly pitiful. But I'm very very very laid back in terms of 'selling' myself and my photo's - and by 'very' I mean I do nothing at all. So to have 34 sales from me doing absolutely no marketing is a very pleasant surprise. If you are one of the people who has one of my prints on your lounge wall / toilet door / bedroom wall / kitchen fridge, then I say 'thank you! it's very much appreciated'.

For all you kiwi's - you should check out ~KiwisUnite - an NZ group. And for those of you inclined to chatting - you should definitely step in and say hi in #kiwisunite on dAmn (just clicky clicky the link). It still needs some setting up, but that's a minor thing and it'd be good to get some real contact happening between kiwi artists. There's getting to be a lot of us here on DA now and we should all be looking to make contact and help each other out. The chatrooms are a great place to network and meet new people, so don't be shy... Jump on in. #kiwisunite

Work is insane. I'm being trained in a different department at the moment, which means a longer day, we have several aerial jobs to try and get done in between the crappy weather we're having, I'm still trying to exercise several nights a week, although lately that's been a bit more difficult. So yeah, just really stressed and tired at the moment.

Mum has to undergo another round of chemo (#3), which will start in the new year. *sigh* She'll be taking part in a new drug trial though as well, so provided she doesn't get on the placebo team then hopefully there's some benefits to be had from that. Fingers crossed.

I'm up to almost 10kg weight loss - so I'm really happy about that. Gone down two clothing sizes already, so I'm definitely feeling a lot better. But there's still more to go, so provided I can keep that exercise level up, hopefully by the end of summer I'll be in much better shape than I have been in a long long time.

September was an absolutely insane month with the whole deviousness thing, I'm still blown away by it all, and just wanted to say a mass 'thank you' to everyone who left me amazing comments and congrats and favourited my shots and dev-watched me and all that good stuff. You guys are awesome. I've said it before and I'll say it again, I came for the art, I stay for the people (ok, and the art... but still... people too).

For all you kiwi's - you should check out ~KiwisUnite - an NZ group. And for those of you inclined to chatting - you should definitely step in and say hi in #kiwisunite on dAmn (just clicky clicky the link). It still needs some setting up, but that's a minor thing and it'd be good to get some real contact happening between kiwi artists. There's getting to be a lot of us here on DA now and we should all be looking to make contact and help each other out. The chatrooms are a great place to network and meet new people, so don't be shy... Jump on in. #kiwisunite

Oh and before I forget - which I'm prone to do - one of the most awesome chick's I've had the pleasure of meeting here is having a birthday very shortly - so if you could find it in your wonderful hearts to go say 'happy birthday' to =rinna you'd make me very happy.

... is the point?

The 100k rolled around and it doesn't look like anyone managed to catch it. Ah well. Maybe next time

I got an awesome surprise in the mail today, courtesy of a wonderful young lass.

A fine art print of

by the fabulous $zilla774

It looks fantastic, and tomorrow shall be spent sorting out wall space and hanging that, and a few others things I have tucked away.

Edit: I don't have the funds to frame everything, so instead had to resort to pins for most of it (through the wall only, not the print )







On the wall we have: from top left in 3 rows: a canvas of Coming Home by me [link] Affection by `shyble [link] Her Valentine by $zilla774 [link]
Little Kingdom Blue by $zilla774 [link] anjules, an original drawn on commission by =duststorm10 [link] Down into the blue by *pecchio [link]
Burning Fire by *pecchio [link] and finally 2 of my own prints, Flowing Ice [link] and Tolaga Bay Pier 1 [link]