(Not literally, but still).

This is the space for our members to discuss and share their creative projects, ranging from written works to drawings, photography, and even craft projects such as knitting and woodworking. Self promotion is welcome (websites where we can view and/or purchase your work). Please do continue to preface if content is NSFW and be sure to properly spoiler/link such content. Those of you who’d like to post future Creative Endeavors Threads post your request in the comments below.

I’m now only a few days away from my lease ending on the apartment that’s been my home for over a decade (I’m actually moving either tonight or tomorrow), and it’s got me more than usually contemplative about the passage of time and (among other things) the development of my artwork. When I first moved here, in September 2014, it was a huge step in my life as it was the first fully self-contained apartment I’d ever lived in on my own. Everywhere I’d lived before had involved some kind of roommate situation (to which I’m returning); the decade previous had been in an old school month-to-month rooming house as it was what I could afford at the time. Eventually my landlord raised the rent to be competitive with a few fully-equipped shoeboxes still lying around town and I finally jumped on the opportunity, finding a place which really couldn’t have been more convenient for most of my necessities and interests at the time (diminished convenience will still be the single biggest drawback to this move, not that I can really help that—and the reductions’ll vary, anyway).

It still makes me smile sometimes to remember how excited I got thinking of all the stories I was going to write here. The first week I picked up a coffeemaker and the day after, brewed a pot at six in the morning and didn’t stop drinking coffee (or writing) until a little after noon; there was a good chance I hadn’t had so much in one sitting since the mid-90s. Little did I suspect, starting that summer, that I’d barely write a word of prose fiction again. When I took up artwork, there was little enough adjustment needed as I was “only” drawing and later inking, and even watercolor didn’t take up much more space. Once I got into acrylics and especially oils, I had to start thinking about storage priorities (letting paints dry, disposing of brush water and thinners, etc.) and I may have bought more art supplies than I needed (they could have been a bigger extravagance during the pandemic, but y’know… it happened). So it felt that, between a growing familiarity with the place and the swelling of the stuff I either made or accrued over the years, the place kinda shrank to the point where I often preferred the public or college libraries as a workspace for at least drawing (one advantage my earlier place had was a large desk which would have been incredibly useful; planning to at least improvise one in the next).

There’s also the neighborhood to consider. I’ve been living less than a block away from our downtown, and was inexpressibly excited about this when I’d moved in. The place was then undergoing a slight revival (that wouldn’t really last the year) and I developed a… misleading impression of what life would be like based thereon; the energy responsible has since dispersed—in fits and starts—to nearby Ypsilanti and even Detroit, and that well before the pandemic. I’ve also become a little disassociated from what’s left of the downtown energy and spirit. Living as a service industry worker in Ann Arbor makes me feel like a ghost half the time anyway, and changes in both my personal life and the city’s have helped to further alienate me. There’s also the (fraying or garish, take your pick) social fabric; the creative or artistic (mostly musical, to be specific) set with which I was familiar has been largely priced out of town and downtown in particular feels largely divided these days between a collection of well-to-do cultural suburbanites and the local indigent community (a few aggressive members thereof have been the subject of a lot of online handwringing recently). I’m more accustomed to the latter than most given my long tenure down the alley from our downtown housing project, but the growing monotony’s undeniably depressing. I’m really looking forward to living somewhere a little more removed from the “swing of things,” as limp and unconvincing as the latter’s increasingly grown.

So I’m processing a lot right now. The next thread I post will be from a new environment, and I’m guessing it’ll take a while to fully settle in, though I’m cautiously optimistic that it’ll prove a better fit for what I’m doing than the soon-to-be old place. The header this week is my bed/living room floor from September 2019 (roughly halfway through my tenure); I was actually in the middle of a couple of favorite paintings at the time (and still writing the webcomic) and I suspect there’ll be a lot of nostalgia to fight (and eventually wallow in once I’m comfortable enough with the new situation).

How’s your work going?