Escape...

What is your escape? Do you have more than one? I know what my escapes are, my bike for one. Sometimes everyday life can just be a drag and get you down. What is it that makes all that go away, if even for a moment? I know some people turn to drinking and drugs as an escape. Well for me its my bike, working out, music, and my art. When I do these things I can enter another world where my problems of this life are no more. When I ride its me and my bike against gravity and a mangled body. Its my skill against physics to pull off a sweet line. When I jump off the picnic table I just hopped up on, its guts and a prayer that I land clean. Trusting in my body, my sense of balance and my equipment saves my ass, most of the time!

Working out is an escape from the mundane. Once again its me against gravity. The weight I put on the bar must be overcome with sheer strength. Nothing else will move that iron, but my will to. Its the pain of the exertion, the mental pain of pushing my body to new heights. Its the rush of breathing forcefully with purpose, and moving mountains. In this world its just me and the weights and the strength of my body and my mind. Can I break myself this time? NO because I can't be broken! That's the mindset anyway.

Music is an escape on many levels for me. I tend to feel very deeply and strongly, even if I don't show it on the outside. I like many kinds of music, and can workout with rage, or fall asleep to the heaviest of rifts. Music is an energy that speaks to me and matches phase with my emotional state. The lyrics of a song and the music that goes with it can be very moving. I am sure everybody knows this, but is it an escape? Do you drift off into the rhythm and beat? Does it make you forget reality as you know it? Are you immersed in the sound, and bob your head and sing along? These things all describe me as I retreat from reality and into the music. What does it say to you? What does it say to your partner? How does it make you feel? If you can't answer those questions, turn on some music and lose yourself in the magic.

And finally my art. Well for me I design and build from the deepest parts of my consciousness. People familiar with my style and who know me personally will understand. Even though I haven't built anything recently doesn't mean my brain stopped working! I am working on some amazing ideas. I want to be able to express myself more in my art. Not just building things that are functional, but pieces that are pure art. I want someone to look at it and be moved (beyond "hey that's a cool clock") to their core. I want them to see and understand the inner workings of my emotions and feel what I do. I have no idea how I am going to accomplish this but I am going to try my best. I feel it will take me to the next level as an artist, and as a human being. It is something that I am going to strive for, in an effort to "perfect" my style. I want people to see "WHO I AM" through my work, my words and my life. My thoughts dictate my actions, and maybe I can live up to certain standards expected of me? Nothing in life is a constant, minute to minute things change and thus our lives are shaped......

I hope what I leave behind will be an example to others and not a mockery to all.............................

Art?

So I have come to wonder in this past month, what is art? I had been pushing the business side of Ostlund Custom Works too hard. I didn't realize what I was doing except that I was starting to hate it. I was starting to prepare for a big show and it was making me crazy. So I decided to just let it go. What I thought I wanted to do didn't seem like such a good idea anymore. So I embraced the art, I let it soak in and it changed me. I used to despise art, until I got into it, until I met some amazing artists! I actually bought some art books and started studying on my own. What I started learning and seeing is amazing, and I think differently now. Its been an interesting change in my life, one that i never saw coming! So now you might ask what is on the table for me? Well I will design and build when I am inspired to do so. I will not force the creativity, or pressure myself into doing something I don't want to. If I do that I will hate it instead of love it and all this work will be for naught. Here is a poem I wrote one night at a coffee house as I was thinking about all of this stuff. There was a musician there and I was just looking around the room at shapes and colors. My candle sconces were on the wall not far from where I sat and the candles caused thought!


Coffeehouse Sketch

Uninspired ramblings fill the space between thoughts.
Mindless symphony of math, angles become undefined.
Art is what...?
Serpentine in its nature, it defies conformity.
Imagination stirred by lines, causing emotion, its tension is broken.
Piercing the soul with paint, nudging heart strings with form,
as a flame sings color in kelvin.
Plucked strings, rhythmic compressions of fluid, pneumatic vibrations fill my ears.
Yet my paper is still blank...

Ron Ostlund Jr.