Washing machine blues # dilemmas of empathy

Waiting for the washing machine to finish washing, contemplating events of the day. My friend who got denied his application for benefits that I was hoping would pull him out of where he's been for decades. Disappointment, pain, and some practice in empathy balancing: me getting worried makes it worse for him. Thinking about empathy, …

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Half an update on the upper triangle of Maslow’s pyramid

Difficult to find a path back into writing after periods of action. Real-life action. Difficult to carry on with a narrative when the storyline is prone to sudden jerky jumps. Nevertheless trying to carry on with the commitment to writing, remembering over and over again how helpful it's been to me in the last months. …

Recycling ruined canvasses is like working with your past.

In a previous post I have documented the process of ruining a simple landscape sketch.  Since I don't like wasting canvasses (or wasting paint), I keep occasionally trying to somehow "fix" or improve the situation of that horrible canvas.  I figured out that one of the reasons I ruin sketches is that by adding more …

Leftover red paint #1

I don't like when I've got some paint left on the palette that would just dry up and be wasted. For some reason often red paint remains.  I had a lot of red paint today and decided to use it up in some way, and produced a series of abstractions that I honestly like because …

Messing with representational painting preserving the fun of the abstract #1

My recent project is to go from copying to painting without any models, based on imagination and memory.  The copied work so far certainly looks more decent (see here). However, it's also annoying to not be able (or scared) to just paint visual thoughts, dreams and visions, and these things.  I've spent quite a long …

Guitar meditation #2 and autistic learning curves

https://soundcloud.com/sasha_tramp/longer-morning-guitar-meditation I've been trying to teach myself various musical instruments since I was a kid.  I think I tried to play guitar for the first time probably in primary school; as soon as my dad had one. There were always guitars in the house, in an era before youtube or even CD players, when my …

Doctor of philosophy

That's the title of a (Polish) jazz record my guitar teacher made. (In 2014, the time when I was seeking self, meaning and homeland in dusty & martyrological Warsaw and on the side benefitted from spending the British pounds I'd shnorred from the last PhD scholarship on professional guitar lessons with an actual jazz musician …

Thoughts on guitar #1

Apparently the phase for images has passed.  Wave of words has ebbed.  Yet, somehow a person is to go on thinking, and it seems like thoughts are inclined to take the shape of sound. [improvised track, as I will probably remain forever quite unable to read music or memorise songs] https://soundcloud.com/sasha_tramp/guitar_thoughts_dec_12 I also have various …

Urban retreat and nervous system deregulation

Since my partner left on a business trip, I've been torn between doing a silent retreat back in my village, or just staying in the hellish city and trying to do the same – the upside here being that it saves me 2 days of travel and 2 additional days of anxiety/exhaustion around travel.  My …