Never Surrender

Digital - 297x210mm - 2016

Art-wise 2016 started off really strong. I was churning out drawings at a rate that I’ve never achieved before. I discovered that I can do an A3 drawing in a day, about 4 years before, it would have taken me 3 weeks. I’ve been adding a lot more texture to my drawings, previously they had always seemed rather flat. I showed my work off in an exhibition, a baby step, but a proud baby step. Although after my Japan trip this year my art was completely put on hold but for a few drawings. Unfortunately blowing heaps of cash on leather pants, records, booze and the general expensiveness of spending nearly 2 months in Japan – as well as the low Australian dollar – left me heavily in debt. Fortunately, I had work offered to me from the day I returned to Australia until the end of the year. While this relieved my financial burdens, it meant I had no energy for art or even updating my website.

Japan for the third time was fantastic, so many more friends, so many more bands that I got to see. My good friends Blake and Ash went on an overseas adventure that ended in Japan, I didn’t want to be left in Australia without them, constantly being jealous of their super fun adventures. So, I impulsively went to Japan to party until they arrived. I spent about the same length of time for my first time in Japan, but I only went to about 5 gigs due to lack of information. Third time around I went to about 15 including a 3-day festival. When I wasn’t going to shows, I was hunting for records, or drinking, I’m a terrible tourist, I hardly saw any sights.

I got to see my artwork on 7inch record while there, as well as t-shirts! For a Japanese punk band! Dreams coming true! I also got more artwork requests from other bands there which makes me even happier. New friends, finding out about new bands and getting to see old friends again were definitely highlights. Getting to drink with my Australian friends at Bar Konton in Osaka was another dream come true. I feel very privileged to have been able to enjoy those memories, also the ones I can’t remember at all, I’m sure they were fun at the time.

There were two low points to the year. One was, while incredibly sick, shitting my pants while staying with my friends in Kochi. I could barely move for 3 days and had so much diarrhea, my hosts Dana and Hiro took such good care of me and were so wonderful about the whole thing. I didn’t trust a fart during the entire time and on the day I woke up feeling better I had a few thoughts: first, “Fuck yeah I have energy! I can move! Woohoo!” and then quickly “my butt feel wet…I hope I didn’t poop my pants…I pooped my pants”. There were only a few drops of brown on the futon I was sleeping on, I probably could have gotten away with not saying anything, but I felt I would be morally worthless if I left the stained futon for another guest they might have over. Owning up to it was one of my more embarrassing life moments, what made it worse is that Dana had to translate the entire thing for Hiro because he doesn’t speak a lot of English. I’ll tell the full story in another post some time. I did buy a new futon.

The second low point was when Buddy’s health went to shit during September. I took two weeks off work during August because Buddy had a sore on his paw and I wanted to look after him as well as get some artwork for friends out of the way. I took Buddy to a vet who barely look at him and brushed everything off as unimportant. I thought he was getting better, but then at the end of the two weeks, he got an ear infection, an infection on his torso due to his allergies and scratching, fungus on his foot, he also got a really bad limp out of nowhere that stopped him from being able to go on walks, and finally one of his cancer growths was bleeding. I took Buddy to a better vet and got medications and remedies for everything. The main cause for concern was the bleeding cancer growth, the vet squeezed it while inspecting, and the growth started bleeding. This would cause Buddy to try and lick or gnaw at the wound resulting in either myself or my housemates finding him covered in blood. I was working and always wondering if Buddy was bleeding and no one was around to help him. Fortunately, I have some wonderful friends that I live with, they all helped look after him. Again, I’ll write the full story in a different post. The whole experience was one of the most stressful points in my life.

I finished working with a week left of the year and I was determined to finish one last drawing. I figured a frog would be fitting enough. It had been 4-5 months since I had drawn something and probably 9 months since I had done a black and white frog drawing. I suppose if there was any theme behind the frog it would be ‘Never Surrender’, this most likely a result of listening to too much of the UK punk band Blitz (if there is such a thing as too much Blitz! I think not!). I also wore my Blitz Never Surrender/ 45 Revolution shirt a lot this year. Every year is a good year for Blitz. This drawing was inspired by Blitz. I’m getting distracted.

I worked on the frog over the course of a week. It was meant to be a quick frog done in a night, but after not drawing for so long I was having way too much fun doing all the textures and details. Loved every moment of creating this psychedelic art, it reminded me of what I love so much about drawing. I was going to add in some scenery later on but that never eventuated.

I ‘finished’ the drawing on New Year’s eve. That was the goal. The year was a bit rough for the world, for my friends. I was thinking about how that problems don’t go away at the end of the year, they carry on and evolve for better or worse. I’ve never been much of a celebrator for the start of a new year and the end of the previous. Then I thought about everyone in the world celebrating together, one giant world party (at different times), maybe we’re all happy that both personally and as a whole, we made it through another year without completely annihilating ourselves. However, that process might be drawn out over quite a few years rather than be something that happens in the span of a year. For better or worse humans never give up surviving. If humans do wipe themselves out, I hope we don’t take dogs with us, if there’s any animal that deserves to be the new dominant species, it’s dogs. I’ve been too tired most of the year to be paying close attention to the world and how to help, hence the mostly personal nature of this writing, the only thing I could come up with to making the world a better place at the end of the year, was posting a weird looking frog on social media for my friends to see.

A positive baby step into the new year.

My friend Mel has this frog tattooed on his leg and it turned out amazing! I think she may be the first person to have my artwork tattooed and I’m glad she chose this frog.