A large machine for Nem Gate. Work on this thing gave me a headache!  It was very difficult to get the ideas flowing on this.  But in the end, I think the result was okay for the most part.  I just wish it hadn't been such an ordeal for the client and I to try and drag it into existence.

It wasn't the client's fault, mind you.  He's always understanding, patient and cooperative.  It was me, struggling to actually see how to make it work.  The room came relatively easy, but I do rooms all the time.  It's become second nature.  The frame and the reactor, on the other hand.  Well, I've got to work on my skills in that area, I guess.

Even then, however, it goes to show you that even with years of experience, if the idea doesn't want to come, it's not going to.  Artist's block can come from stuff like family or personal issues, stress from having to help loved ones, just not getting enough sleep one day, your blood sugar dipped too low, or sometime as simple as someone cut you off in traffic.

Resistance immediately sets in at that point.  If you're an artist with unfinished work on your hard drive or in your studio somewhere, you've experienced resistance.  And resistance, which is when you're working on a project and lose interest in it or it just won't go any more and you want to give up, is the worst thing for a professional artist.  We're under contract to finish a work for someone. We're getting paid for this.  We don't finish it, we don't eat.  We don't eat, we get irritable! 

There are exercises, they say, which help with combating resistance, but in my experience, it literally comes down to just forcing yourself to sit at the computer and start making geometry. Any geometry.

So, I plug in "chill" on Pandora Radio, and get out my tea and a few snacks and start working.  I add a greeble here, or a panel there.  Then it just starts coming, but it's always a struggle to get art to thrive.  Art for me requires peace and clear thoughts.  Nowadays, those things are getting rarer and rarer.  So, we adapt as best we can to the changing times and hope for the best.

Dan