today's report from the workplace

My status as an employee of the Company where I work is a little bit strange. I am not a true employee, as my paychecks come from a placement service, not the Large Office Supply Corporation where I work. This has its advantages and disadvantages. The biggest disadvantage is that I can't be sure whether or not I will have a job from week to week, or even day to day. A smaller inconvenience is that I am not allowed directly into the building, but rather have to login to a security computer every day and print out a new identification card that says "VISITOR", clearly signifying to anyone who might care to look at my badge that I don't genuinely belong. (I suppose this is a step up from high school, where my fellow students didn't need any sort of identification. They assumed that I didn't belong.)

The upside to this is that even though I otherwise function as a full-time employee, I feel free to park my car in the spaces reserved for visitors. It's the perk I give myself as a pseudoemployee.

This morning, the gentleman in front of me was having some difficulty logging in as a visitor. As it happens, he wasn't a freelancer like me... more of an actual "visitor". Visiting. And it had been some time since his last visit, so his information was no longer active in the database. If I saved any time by parking in the visitor spaces this morning, I lost it because I was waiting for this guy to be processed.

This gave me some time to glance around the building some. I actually like the building, but find some aspects of it unsettling. It's five floors, not including the basement, which houses the cafeteria. The office spaces are all centered around an atrium, so there is a lot of open space in the building. There's also a hole cut out of the lobby floor to expose parts of the eating area of the cafeteria. This creates a strange sense of space that I'm sure the architects designed to make the interior of the building even larger than it is, but in me manages to induce a slight sense of vertigo. I avoid walking to close to the edge of the walkway. Even though there's a 40inch glass wall to keep me safe, I imagine myself plummeting to my death and really spoiling someone's lunch.

The Company sends mixed messages to it's employees in the form of slogans applied in large vinyl appliqué letters applied to various glass surfaces throughout the building. From my side of the building, I can see the tagline "passionate | innovative | fun" repeated in a friendly font along a whimsical curvy path. This is on the windows on the third floor. If my work area was located on the other side of the office, the direction from which I was looking this morning, standing by the security station, I would get a completely different message.

Those on the South side of the building enjoy a different kind of inspiration. If your perspective finds you facing north, you will read five different phrases:

focus & discipline
sense of urgency
think company & customer first
teamwork & trust
integrity & accountability

Instead of following a curved path in a light typeface, these messages are bold and straight. Less friendly. At least they're lower case, otherwise, it would be a really aggressive use of type.

So today I count myself lucky that while I work I'm reminded to be passionate, innovative and fun. Or...at worst, to work on my enilpicsid & sucof.

art therapy

Over the weekend, I spent a good portion of time coaxing the likeness of a dead man and his wife out of a charcoal pencil. I happen to be able to somewhat accurately render people's portraits in a variety of media--charcoal, oil paint, watercolor. I can't recall when I discovered this skill, but I have reasonably good portraits dating back to high school. Actually, I have a pretty nice piece that I drew of my grandfather who died when I was in 8th grade. I'm better now...but for that age, I wasn't bad.

When I was younger, most of my subjects had been alive when I drew them. Often they were girls to whom I was trying to ingratiate myself. (They were flattered, but I rarely achieved my intended objective.)

Around this time of year in 1999, I quickly drew a portrait of Polly's dad for use on the memorial folder at his wake/funeral. This turned out to be a good marketing move. That drawing has led to a fair amount of portrait commissions. I haven't exactly kept track of it, but I'm pretty certain that I have sold more portraits than any other kind of art. Not that I've really focused on selling my art.

While I have been commissioned to do a fair amount of live people--children, engagement portraits, that sort of thing--I have also drawn probably more than my share of dead people. I don't mind. It's nice that I can do it, and those left behind often appreciate it. It has lead to the occasional awkward exchange. I can think of at least one family member who liked the memorial portrait I had done of one relative or other that he wanted to be sure that when he shuffled off this mortal coil, I was ready to capture his likeness. I don't think I have to work from his actual corpse. I think it's probably okay to use a photo.

Which begs the question: is it a life drawing or a still life? Not a bad name for an exhibition of these death portraits...something to consider.

Speaking of exhibits, recently I entered a not-so-recent painting into a local art show. I felt a bit fraudulent, because my artistic output has mostly been limited to random sketches, some illustrations for theatre posters and the occasional portrait commission. The piece I entered was done in 2000. However, the requirements for the show was that the artist resided in the Fox Valley area, the work was ready to hang and it hadn't been entered in this same show in previous years. Age didn't matter. I presume the Mona Lisa could have been entered, if the Louvre was inclined to loan it out. And if Leonardo DaVinci's remains had been exhumed and moved to Aurora.

The show is called "Vicinity 2007" and the theme is that all the artists live within some radius of the gallery. I entered in the show for a couple reasons. There were five monetary prizes, one for $1000 and four for $250. Those would have been nice, but I really didn't expect to win. (And I would have really thought myself a fraud if I had won, since the work was so old. Still would have cashed the check, though.) The real reason was to pad my resume. I want to get in the habit of making art work and exhibiting it, and I wanted more juried shows to name check for that purpose.

About a year and a half ago, I did a solo exhibit of my work. All of it was old work. It was my intent that it would be the last time this stuff was shown, and I would start to make new work. I called the show "Cobwebs" and promised myself that I would take this opportunity to dust off my creativity and start to make new work. My hope was to have built up a large enough body of work to do another solo exhibit of new work within a year.

I broke that promise.

So feeling like a bit of a failure, I attended the opening reception for the Vicinity show yesterday. It was a bit of an odd experience, but would have been odder if I had more invested emotionally in it. I went with Polly and her mother, and we took the three kids along. I wasn't crazy about the idea of taking the kids along. Polly didn't think it would be a big deal. Nothing that happened at the exhibit change either of our opinions. Our kids are relatively well behaved (with the exception of Rosalie, who at 2 has taken the idea of the terrible twos to heart). No scenes were made. No art was ripped off the walls. Ultimately, I wasn't able to relax and focus on the event and look at the art and hang around anonymously near my painting and listen to other people's comments about it because I was more focused on what the kids were doing. So I guess it's just a matter of opinion. That said, I did enjoy talking to Ross (my six-year old) about the art. I just would rather have done it when the gallery was less occupied.

I didn't win any prizes. Not even an honorable mention. I don't know if I would have known before the event whether or not my work had been awarded. Even so: while I would have felt a fraud had I won anything, and didn't expect to win a little part of me was disappointed. I guess I'm just a little bit human.

(The piece I entered in the exhibit is below...it's a portrait of my uncle and grandmother from a photo taken when they were in Cuba, juxtaposed with political iconography. There was a theme running through my work about 7 years ago that dealt with some of those ideas.)


santos de la revolución 2000, originally uploaded by basest.

another day, another drawing

creepy-old-man, originally uploaded by basest.

All is quiet on the western front...or whichever front upon which I happen to be. Instead, I present you with yet another quick sketch I did at work. This time, I wasn't even waiting for my computer to do anything...I was just...

waiting.

I was sort of playing with using lines to create the illustion of drapery in the guy's cloak (frock, habit, whatever he's wearing). I think I was successful in some parts.

sketch of the day

snow-beach, originally uploaded by basest.

nothing really to say about this. just a random sketch done at work while waiting for a really giant file to save. I wasn't even doing anything to the file, just saving it in two variable press-ready formats. The whole process took me about 1 1/2 hours. The sketch didn't take that long. I'm slow...but not that slow.

Phoctober

okay...
So here's the deal. Maht over at the Moontopples blog took some really nice photos in late september and thought that he'd commit to doing a photo post every day in the month of October. He called it "Phoctober" because it sounded vaguely dirty. He invited anyone who wanted to participate to join in the Phoctober festivities, and to let him know, and he'd link back to those who joined in the fun.

He even linked back to my birth control test post without me asking him to do so. Awfully nice of him to do so, since I had intended to participate, and kept putting it off.

Last night, I went through some of the photos I took throughout the month of october, intending to do one big Phoctober post that sort of chronicled my month in visual terms. Most of the photos I took were of weather phenomena. There were some foggy morning shots, as well as some beautiful sunrises that looked like Maxfield Parrish had painted the sky above my house. And then there were the photographs I took of my son Ross the day he had an angry confrontation with some pavement.

Apparently one of his friends was tugging on Ross' shirt and let go. Ross tumbled forward and hit the ground, resulting in some nasty looking abrasions.

We weren't super concerned about this...kids will get hurt. I don't really like it when the kids get hurt. But I do like to take photos of their injuries, if they are particularly notable. I'm just weird that way.

As I was deciding which photos to run for my Phoctober post, I had some difficulty deciding how to crop the photo of Ross' injury. It was interesting to me to see how the photo changed depending on how I chose to frame it. This quickly became more fascinating to me than the various weather phenomena I photographed. The photos are at turns sad...chilling...defiant...confrontational.

I'm curious how each photo affects you, blogreader. Let me know what you think. Does each one affect you differently? Or am I just a bit mad?

Just remember: no children were intentionally harmed in the posting of this blog.

East of Scranton

I'm at work.

I've been at work since 8:30. Okay...more like 8:37, and by the time I checked in through security and got up to my "cubicle" on the 4th floor, it was closer to 8:45. It's 9:35 now. Do you want to know how much work I've done?

none

not one bit

This wouldn't be a problem if I wasn't freelancing. I want to appear to be valuable to this company so that they keep me.

But it's been a while since I wrote about work, so you may be confused. You may recall that the last time I wrote about work, I was working on the catalog for a medical supply company. At the time, I called it a short-term assignment. I think when I wrote that, I believed short-term meant 1-2 weeks. I was wrong. I suspect that if I had been happy with the hourly rate there, I would still be working there. When I finally found better paying and more interesting work through a different placement service, I was told repeatedly that I would be welcome back any time. Unlike my former employer, these people seemed to think that I was actually a valuable asset to a company. Then again, they weren't paying me as much...

Anyhow, I got the chance to leave that job for a more interesting one that was closer to home and paid better. It was supposed to be a week, with the possibility for extension. They were a packaging design company. I worked on a bag of Easter Eggs for Tootsie Roll (coming to a WalMart near you this spring) and some boxes for solar path lighting. My favourite was the color changing ones. You can get these lights that are ugly enough during the day, but at night, they harness the power of the sun that they've been soaking up all day to create a disco-esque atmosphere of light that changes from blue to green to red and back again. Groovy!

So that job went on for a week, and they were really happy with me. And I really liked it there. The commute was reasonable, and the work was almost fun. By Wednesday, I was told that they wanted to keep me, probably for six more months. On Friday, I was told that they wouldn't need me the following week, but if I could return on the week after that, then they'd need me for six more months. My representative from my placement service called me on my way home and told me that they wanted to know if I'd be willing to work for a little bit less, if they could guarantee a longer term assignment. I said I had to think about it.

This is the problem with working for a small company. Their budgets are too tight. A large corporation where one can become faceless is starting to look good, if I want to make a decent living.

By Tuesday of the following week, I was talking to a variety of reps from the same agency about three different jobs. Technically, I was still in the mix to come back for the packaging job, but they seemed really interested in getting a better deal. And they couldn't commit to bringing me back when they had agreed to do so. The big project that they wanted me for was taking a little bit longer to get started. It was a bad omen, anyhow, when I heard who the client was, as they were also a client of my previous employer--one of the projects that I was accused of mismanaging when I was fired. (It was my boss' client. He was on vacation during a crucial point in the project. This was my fault, apparently).

Anyhow, it appears that since I was such a hit at my first assignment for this particular placement service, the reps actually tried to get me placed elsewhere. On Thursday of that week, at 9am, I found myself navigating the byzantine security procedures of the corporate headquarters of Office Max.

Once I was photographed, fingerprinted and frisked, I was given a visitor pass and allowed to wait in the designated waiting area. A woman sat opposite me with two large road cases--I told her that I had chosen to travel light that day. It got a laugh. When I was single, it would have been a nice opening to conversation with this desirable specimen of the opposite sex. When I was single, I would probably not have been able to get the words out. Funny how easy it is to speak with people when there's nothing at stake. Two quick sketches later, I was greeted by a guy about my age who introduced himself as "not Eugene." Eugene was the guy to whom I was supposed to report. I soon discovered that one doesn't get to speak to Eugene for very long. He runs around a lot and attends many meetings. I don't envy his job.

On the way up to the fourth floor, "not Eugene" told me his name was actually Scott Swan. We made a little small talk about traffic and he showed me to my work area. In the first paragraph, I referred to my "cubicle". I put it in quotation marks, as I have again here. The reason is that they seem to have run out of space, and so I'm really sort of just out in an open area. It's a bit weird. Better than a broom closet, though. And I have a really nice view out some really big windows.

Scott told me that he didn't know what I'd be working on, but that Dwight, who was in a meeting but would be out shortly would be responsible for giving me work.

That's right. I work for an office supply company, and one of the guys who I work for is called Dwight. If you don't watch the US version of The Office, this might mean nothing to you, but if you do, you will understand why I am amused every time I think of this.

Dwight's last name is Darling. I began to worry that I did not have an appropriate name to work here, but it turns out that so far, Scott and Dwight are the only two alliterative names that I have encountered here at Office Max.

So anyhow, Dwight took me around and showed me examples of what the creative department did at Office Max, and then threw a little assignment at me.

I've been working for a long time in situations that require extremely quick turnaround. I think Dwight didn't expect me to finish as quickly as I did. I now know that he was impressed with my speed and thought the end result was good. But for the first few couple days, I was sort of left to flounder. I like to distinguish myself quickly as a valuable asset. It wasn't until the middle of the second week that I began to understand that I was allowed to take more time with things. Not that I need it.

Which is why I find myself sitting here getting paid to write my blog. Oh wait...looks like someone has something for me. Off to earn my keep.

Forgive me, blogger, for I have sinned...

...it's been 26 days since my last posting.

Many things can be ignored or otherwise neglected for a period of 26 days with few to no consequences. Unpaid bills might pile up, but you don't go into collections until at least 3 months. The lawn might begin to look untidy, and one's personal appearance might as well.

But there are a few things in one's life that if left neglected, can lead to somewhat dire circumstances. For instance, one's children. Or fish. Either of these could die if ignored for such an extended length of time.

One's spouse or significant other would probably not die of neglect, assuming she (or he) was capable of caring for herself. On the other hand, she might not be there when you come back. And she might be upset about the kids.

And I suppose that a sexually active woman might notice if she missed her period by 26 days. It might motivate her to drive to the local pharmacy or grocery store and purchase a pregnancy test.

I happened to drive up to the liquor entrance to the Woodman's Grocery Story near my home and saw a curiously shaped object on the ground in the parking lot as I exited my car. I knew instantly what this thing was. I've seen at least three of them in my lifetime.

Curious, I approached. Closer inspection confirmed my suspicion. It was a home pregnancy test, and it had been used. I was thankful that the results side was exposed. I wasn't looking forward to touching an object that I was certain had been in contact with someone else's urine. But I also knew that my curiousity would not be satisfied unless I was able to share in the joy or despair of the human being with whom I was now connected in this unusual way.



The photo is terrible. It's taken with my cellphone's camera. However, what is clear is the line that indicates that the test was positive. For my new friend, whoever/wherever she may be, I hope that postive is a good thing.

I wonder if she'll name it after me?