STILL DOODLING IN MARGINS AFTER ALL THESE YEARS

I have a notebook as well as a sketchbook. I find myself keeping them separate because in my early days, when I was serious, struggling to become some kind of professional, people who seemed to know more told me, “You have to make up your mind.” The world where they make creativity into money doesn’t like it if you’re an artist and a writer, and if you do them both at the same time . . .

The desire to be a cartoonist isn’t something teachers like. Why don’t you do real art? Real writing, instead of all this sci-fi silliness?

For years I fought off the urge to be a renaissance Chicano, writing, and drawing on the same page, with the same tool, pencil, pen, or even crayon.

In the the happy rebellion of my school daze, doodling in the margins of the notebooks while taking notes in class, trying to commit and master the painful, unnatural act of being a student, I hijacked the educational materials and space to put some of what’s bubbling in my head into some viewable form.

My personal notebooks are where I organize my writer business. I make notes of daily progress, keep track of my simultaneous projects, jot down rough ideas. Serious stuff.

These days, I doodle in the margins of my notebooks.

Unlike what I do in my sketchbooks, these aren’t intended for public consumption. I’m not being a “professional” artist. Damn, it’s liberating.

It’s putting down the burden of art, the way the Maya speak of putting down the burden of time.

At the same time, I find myself reconnecting with drawing, the act of making a mess with some kind of tool, putting the magic in my mind on a flat surface.

In the end, it makes me a better artist–whateverthehell that is.

Sometimes I take pictures of these doodles. Some of them are pretty good. Maybe they’ll somehow make their way into my Work.

CHICANONAUTICA CATCHES PANDEMIC NOSTALGIA FROM GÓMEZ-PEÑA’S MEX FILES

Chicanonautica gets infected at La Bloga:

It’s Guillermo Gómez-Peña’s fault:

Borders mean nothing:

Everything’s performance:

 

See the past, welcome to the future:

 

SCENES FROM MY NEGLECTED SKETCHBOOK

To my shame, I’ve been neglecting my sketchbook lately. It’s not any kind of “creative block”—I’ve just been busy. It’s been that kind of year.

Once upon a time my sketchbook was the main outlet for my runaway creativity. My brain would have exploded with it, but unfortunately, I attained a peculiar form of success with my writing. It demands a lot of my time, so I tend to focus on it. Also, there’s making a living and all that other stuff.

If only I spent more time drawing, I would be a better artist. As things are, I consider myself pretty good, but my skills have a hard time keeping up with my imagination. What I see in my head outshines what I manage to nail to the paper.

It frustrates me.

Another reason I should draw more is the effect it has on my brain. It’s like exercise, food and medicine. I feel and function so much better if I’ve been drawing.

So, I try to keep at it. I keep a small sketchbook on a shelf next to the bed, open to a drawing, usually an unfinished one. I stare at it hoping to get the creative juices sloshing.

What keeps me from getting down and funky with it is that I’m usually busy or just too tired. Also, I get distracted.

I try to make some spontaneous scribbling that I make into a surrealistic composition and part of a morning routine. Too bad my schedule is so wacky. 

Also, I keep having to get up early to rush off and do something.

In a more civilized world, I would get up late and do a slow wake up/breakfast ritual that would last until almost noon. 

Maybe after I retire from the day job . . .

Meanwhile, I’ll be going on another road trip soon. In the back of my sketchbook, I'll take notes for my travelogues. Lately, I've been doing my damnedest to do quick sketches in those notes. It could help.

Someday, I’d like to be a crazy, prolific sketchbook guy again.

Yup, I’m a mad dreamer to the end.

CHICANONAUTICA GOES BACK TO THE UNITED STATES OF ARIZONA

Chicanonautica returns to United States of Arizona, at La Bloga.

It’s a place people keep coming to:

And others want to keep people out:

At any cost:

And La Cultura is being deconstructed: