Mindless Ramblings

As I sit here and wonder why somethings happen I am forced to realize it all has a purpose. There is a purpose for all energy in this world. It cant be created or destroyed and sometimes we can control it, mostly we cant. This energy I try to harness in productive ways and some of it is channeled into my art. I want each piece to breathe and have a life separate to mine. It has to stand on its own without me. Maybe that sounds crazy to you, maybe not but for me it's how I work. I am just lost in thought right now and trying to make sense of the swirling thoughts as they pass my eyes. Where will the inspiration come from this time? What shape will spark a fire in my mind? What direction will each decision take me, what has fate laid out for my life? Should one even take the time to ponder these things or should you just let it flow? I guess I do both, but the best thing I feel is to just let it flow. Don't over think anything, accept the path and remain positive. That works best for me. Ultimately your energy and believing, negative or positive will dictate your direction in life. If you find yourself stricken with bad things, check your mind! What are your thoughts? What are you actions? Remember thoughts dictate actions, and actions speak louder than words! Well I may have rambled along far enough, so remember to stay positive. It takes work and practice but keep at it. It WILL change your life! It has changed mine and it has therefore changed my art!

Masterpiece!

The day Liam Alexander came into this world, was a moment that changed me to my core. I never knew I could love anybody or anything to completely and so much. My love for my first child and son is something i cant even begin to describe adequately. It fills me to the brim and overflows. I look at this sweet Innocent child and am overwhelmed with emotion. He is my Masterpiece! The most magnificent piece of "Art" i have ever made. Now please don't think i am leaving my wife out of this! She actually did most of the work, carrying this little angel for 9 months. And now feeding him what seems to be constantly, along with changing diapers doing laundry and getting up at all hours of the night. He is quite the mess machine but it doesn't bother me one bit! Life as we know it has changed in a huge way, but for the better! I cant imagine not having him here with us.

Now we live hand in hand in a way that never existed before. Our thoughts are always with him, and we cherish every moment and sound he makes. The cute little coo after a sneeze or the grunting of a soon to be messy diaper! I love it all! He motivates me to be better and to make what i do really count. I want him to be proud of his daddy. Liam is a reason to reach a higher standard. A reason to excel in this life and give him the best I can. I cant wait to teach him all the things I know, and to build our relationship as a family. To build that father son bond and build a birdhouse for mom. These are the best times of my life, and I am happy to share them with the two people I love the most! My wife Carissa and our beautiful son Liam! Stay tuned for updates!

"like" my Facebook Fan page and see more pictures of my son and of my work!

A new life begins

When one is inspired there is not much you can do about it. But what you can do about it is to act on that inspiration. I chose to act instead of sit and do nothing. I have wanted to explore a different side of art and to bring something different to my work. I am known for making functional pieces ( clocks, lamps, home decor) of art. I, however, want to break out of that. To become better and more versatile artist is a dream that had to start somewhere. This whole idea of bringing my feelings and emotions into my art has been nothing but a concept in my mind. I didn't have a clear answer as to how I should go about it till now! It started with me sitting on the couch listening to some music with a sketch pad, a pen, and a bit of vodka! As I sat there and my mind cleared, it became clear that i was on to something. "This is a bit risque" I thought, well after what I saw at the last 2 art shows I attended that was the least of my worries. I wasn't even going to start building it for awhile but because of the way things went it happened the next day. So the real story begins!

My wife and I met through a crazy random set of events that confirms our belief in a higher power. I won't get religious on you here but we believe we met because we were supposed to, and a higher power set it up. Our energy was powerful and really seemed to match phase when we met, meaning things really just worked for us. We have wanted to have kids from the very start and it was a dream of mine for a long time as well. Most people don't really think about how and why everything happens, but I tend to often. Sitting on the couch that night I realized that it was quite amazing that we were bringing a new life into this world! This was what I was going to show, and I didn't care what anyone thought.

So here it is, a symbolic show of our winding lives and how they came together at one point. Thus enabling us to change the world by bringing a new life into it. It is also symbolic of the biological process involved. The sperm on its path to find the egg and set in motion the creating of a new life. My emotions as I sat there and thought about this were intense, something so small and unseen is changing my life in untold ways. I had to show this in a way that was visible to anyone who cared to look. For them to look past this "giant aluminum sperm" and think about the meaning behind it. That's what art is supposed to do, make you stop and think! To cause an emotional response at some level, and to move you. Look beyond the physical and stare into the depths of your own mind. Think about how life works, that one microscopic spark of life, that changed your world. This my friends is the beauty of art! Through it we all have the power to effect our own thinking and emotions and to show others this in a physical form.

Another thing that excited me about this project was that I take objects and make them into something greater. The combined energy is greater than the individual energies added together. Its a synergy just like with people, the baby is of a greater energy than the two parts that made it. I also wanted to stay true to my medium which is mostly found objects and materials. Branching off into another medium didn't feel right. I have taken this junk and gave it a new life with a greater purpose and power than it would have had. All the metal is aluminum and is up cycled from various places. The base and top are from the scrap yard Hoosier metals and the rod is from Huth Tool & Machine Corp. The small piece of wood is scrap oak from other projects. I am looking to get this piece into several different galleries in Fort Wayne and at the moment am not sure if I will be selling it. If i do have it for sale it will most likely just be local and not through my etsy shop. Thank you for reading and I would love to hear your comments!

Check out my Facebook fan page and like! Keep track of all my work! http://www.facebook.com/?ref=home#!/pages/Ostlund-Custom-Works/115110605195978

And check out my Etsy Shop. http://www.etsy.com/shop/OstlundCustomWorks?ga_search_query=ostlundcustomworks&ga_search_type=seller_usernames

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.

Finding Art

Finding art has been quite an adventure so far! It has started out with the chance meeting of just the right people. I moment in which our paths intersected that started a chain reaction. I have always been kinda interested in art but never embraced it. I always saw it as some elitist junk with people who knew better running the show. Well turns out that there is people like that in the art world but not all. Its a good thing that I met mostly people who are not "snobs". I decided that if I really wanted to take my work to the next level as far as sales and getting it known I had to mingle with "art geeks". It was something that I didn't want to do but thought I had too. Ok now, I will admit that I had some, if not many preconceived notions of who these people were! I decided I was not going to change but stick to my guns and just be me. Well that has not changed but I have opened my mind to art instead of keeping it shut out. One thing i can tell you is that I have done my best work when I stopped fighting the change and fighting "ART" but opened myself to it. I have started studying and learning where I fit and what my styles are and how to best use the abilities I have to produce what I now call art. I didn't call myself an artist before. I just said "I build stuff." Well I still build stuff, but now I really consider and believe that it is art. It has been a huge change on my part. I really didn't want to go down this path that I didn't know anything about. I really felt stupid and looked down upon by these "smarter than me artists". You know the ones with the degree! I can't say that I will ever get a degree in art, but I can tell you that I will listen and learn from someone who has! Open my mind to change and greater possibilities than I ever thought could happen. I just keep improving upon myself and my work follows!

Death by Poison

So I'm sure this title sounds horrible right? Well it is, anytime someone or something is poisoned its usually a horrible death. It usually is not instant, but a long slow process. Well that's what most of you are doing to your bodies! You are poisoning your bodies with this crap you call food. Sure its not going to happen right away. It will probably take a lifetime. But in the end its going to be a long slow death. Not to mention a decreased quality of life on the way to dying. You might have any number of these problems; cancer, diabetes, heart disease, obesity, depression, impotence, arthritis, osteoporosis, and the list goes on! Why are these all a problem in our society? Well its because we have become dependant on science and convenience, thereby becoming lazy as hell. A lack of education and people who just don't care because they don't know better. You might know how to read but can you read a nutrition/ingredient label? If you wanted to read an ingredient label on your cleaners there is not one in most cases! NO! (thats another blog post) Just look at the epidemic levels of health problems in the world and most of all in the United States. We are as a whole one FAT, UNHEALTHY nation. The government is not a good source for info and the damn FDA is a huge joke. They are wrapped around the finger of giant corporations and do what "they" want them to. In the end, it comes down to money, money, money, he who has the most is the strongest. These drug/chemical companies have no interest in your health and well being! They just want more money in their pockets. So what can you do about it?

OK to start with you can begin to educate yourself! Oh damn I just said that you must do something for yourself! OH NO CAN YOU MUSTER THE COURAGE TO DO THAT?????? Well you can slowly kill yourself or you can do something about it. For the most part this information is not readily available to everyone. I have started seeing a slow and steady change in the past year though. More of this "radical" healthy type stuff is getting into the mainstream media. But at the same time there is more and sometimes violent opposition to it. Shows with Doctors giving sometimes bad advice and down right wrong information. So called "Myth Busting" of "Natural Cures" that stuff really makes me mad! To the average person who just believes what is thrown in front of them, this is REAL information. They believe it because its a doctor telling them and they trust them! Well doctors are taught a certain way and that's what they are bound to teach and practice by law. So they might have your best interests at heart but if you are healthy they don't make money. And down the line it goes, the big food, agriculture, and drug companies don't make money. And if they don't make money the stupid government doesn't get their share either! So how do you educate yourself?

LEARN TO COOK!!!!

The best way is to take small steps, don't jump right in or it wont "stick". Begin to understand what you eat and how to read a label. Then understand what that label means, what are the items listed and what do they do. Once you learn how to do that you will realize that alot of it is not food! You need to slowly shift away from the processed foods with unreadable ingredients. You have to eat naturally, the way God intended not the way man decides. Eat whole foods because that is what your body knows how to use. When its processed it is missing parts and usually they are the most beneficial parts. Your body then craves those missing parts and it causes you to eat more and more. The ingredient labels should have very few items or only one item! It shouldn't be fortified because that is not good for you either! If you eat a balanced diet of whole and minimally processed foods you will get your vitamins and minerals. Now here is something else alot of you say you don't like the taste! Well maybe that's true to start with, most likely it is because you have a false sense of what a certain food tastes like. Were you raised on artificial flavors and products? Well now you associate those fake flavors to be the taste of that particular food. The real food item will not taste the same!! So what you must do is clean your palette of this garbage!!!

LEARN TO COOK!

Once you have learned what is real and fake start eliminating the FAKE crap from your life. It doesn't have to be organic but it has to be all natural and minimally processed. Try new things and discover how they taste. Eat CLEAN and learn to like it, you will acquire the taste for new things as you try them. You will understand how and why it is healthy for you and what it does for your body. That is why you start with research! You don't have to start all at once either just pick an item or 2 a week maybe. You will realize that as you start ridding your mouth of the trash that new flavors start to appear! The wonderful flavor complexity's of real food start to come through. They will not be masked by artificial flavorings and chemical preservatives. The true flavor will be there and the nutrition! Once you have become "Clean" you will see how bad and truly disgusting fake processed food tastes! And you will appreciate how real food tastes. I noticed that when I did this years ago I was able to taste the chemicals and artificial flavors in almost all "poison foods". They just tasted wrong and sometimes actually made me physically sick after eating them! So now whats next?

LEARN TO COOK NEW AND DIFFERENT THINGS!

ORGANIC!!! All i can say about the flavor difference of Organic is that it is PURE! Now i understand that organic is more expensive! What you have to do is spend your money in the best way possible. Clean up the dirtiest areas, the ones most rife with chemicals. (fertilizer's, hormones, antibiotics etc) My belief is that these are dairy, meat, and grains. So much of this stuff is becoming so affordable now, but you have to look for it. Most big stores have a line of house brand organics that are similar if not cheaper than name brand non organic products. Where I live Meijer is a great example, they have a huge line of house brand organics that are amazing in quality. They are as good but much cheaper than the name brand organics and superior to the name brand conventional foods. I bet you will find that if your eating sensibly and healthy with organics that you will lose weight! Yes lose weight without doing anything but eating healthy! If you eat proper amounts of calories with balanced nutrition your body will self regulate. You will slowly hit your ideal weight, if you must gain or lose it will happen.

Now What?

LEARN TO COOK!!! Ok ok you might say after I have screamed it between paragraphs! Because you are dealing with whole/minimally processed foods you have to know how to cook them! You cant just open a package and "nuke it" and then proclaim that dinner is served! (microwaves are the devil but that's a different blog post!) You must know how to cook things. And more importantly cook them for maximum nutrient content. Pretty much it comes down to don't overcook things! Make cooking fun, get the kids involved or your significant other. Try new foods and ways of preparing them. Eat in season because those are the nutrients your body needs at that time of year. Buy local if you can and get to know where your food comes from. Meet the farmers and learn of their practices! Let me tell you that as you start this journey you will become amazed and more self aware. You will become a better you! YOU will not be so selfish, and will help spread the word to other people. Why? Because you have seen a difference in your life! You are healthier, your ailments and disease have gone away and you are whole! Yes it can happen! Proper nutrition is the CURE!!!!!

a great website for finding local food

http://localharvest.org/