ReminiScience

I’ve been on the road for almost a year now between short stays in Thousand Oaks. I devoted an entire blog to my travels. If you’d like to follow along, I started with my most recent trip to Prague in the Czech Republic and Amsterdam in the Netherlands. Check it out!

http://travelblog.natesiggard.com

My good friend and tattoo client Danny Thomas just released his latest snowboard footage from Mammoth Mountain’s unbound terrian park. I spent a few hours with Nate Shute from DTuned TV who shot and edited the footage, and Danny while they edited part of this. I have to say, I am beyond impressed both by Danny’s riding, and also by Nate’s editing abilities.

I’m working on a drastically different website to replace this one. Something a bit more permanent while I focus on the many other projects I’m involved in, which include:

• Amuen.com
• Edited – Neuma Tattoo Machines education video
• Carson Hill’s new website
• Editing Mike Devries Instructional DVD
• A seasonal tshirt lineup and website for Local God
• A book of my HDR landscapes
• Last but not least, WearTheMark.com

Oh yeah, did I mention I’m also tattooing 30 hours a week or more these days? I don’t know where the time is coming from, but I couldn’t be happier.

I’d love to tell you about the time I devoted one hundred hours to observing the wind or how one time I climbed a 10,000′ mountain. Problem with that is, I am obsessed with production. I see this as an advantage rather than a problem though. I’m constantly working on something new. With over 15 websites that I’m responsible for it is pretty easy to find something to work on. Figuring out what the most valuable use of my time is not as easy.

Since the beginning of the year I have completely overhauled WearTheMark.com with a more complete art portfolio. It will probably never be complete in my eyes, but it’s a work in progress that is much closer to making me happy. The layout is sublime and will age gracefully. Hopefully I don’t feel the need to redesign it for a while. There are a lot of new tattoos, paintings, and some sketches up.

I bought some new canvases and paints and should have new paintings done in the very near future. I’m working on one right now that looks like it’s straight out of outerspace, but is actually from deep under the sea. If that doesn’t peak your interest, I don’t know what will.

It’s been about 6 months since I got my How To Take HDR Photos ebook and website up. Since then I’ve sold about 40 books and gotten 20,000 visitors. Pretty amazing what you can do when you put your mind to it. I spent a month solid not sleeping to write and edit the book. After a year of collecting dust I finished the layout and website in about another month. So two months of work, and I’m already making money. Just a little blog upkeep to keep it working. I owe a lot to my good friend Jim Van Wyck for inspiring me to write the book and for recommending the book 4 Hour Workweek which has a very clear guide about generating passive income online. And hopefully I’ve helped a few people in the process too.

I always find myself writing at the turn of the season. Which seems fitting considering the most consistent thing in our lives after the sun and the moon is the involuntary rotation between warmth and cold. After three months of learning, great friends, and hard work, my studio is 99% done. I’m leaving the last 1% out because that last bit will never be done. I’ll always have something to improve upon or add which is a very good feeling. I’ve come to love the process of building as another form of creation – all sorts of wonderful things like comfort, warmth, and transition. It is hard to put my life into perspective fully at this point. Someone comes to me asking to be changed, and then they leave me a few ours later a new person. The change is dramatic and profound. If there is one thing I keep thinking to myself, its that I am so grateful to have the ability to change someone forever. Whatever it is they are working to conquer, I am on their side.

To be tattooed is a long and emotional process that without which I would surely go crazy. I’ll compare it to a bartender, although I have to admit I have never tended bar. They listen to the pains, frustrations, and insecurities of everyday people for a living. Tattoos are amazing works of art of which I wonder in amazement at the creation and effect of. They also get people to open up about the most intimate emotional conditions of their lives.

It is a profound thing to learn the details of a strangers life. Like driving while deep in thought when you end up miles further down the road with no memory the trip between, tattooing blocks the conscious interpretation of what I’m being told. When I finish a long day, the emotional burden finally hits like a ton of bricks.

I’ve been told that getting tattooed makes it easy to feel emotions again. I think it’s just that our minds have taken over our bodies and that tattooing relinquishes thought from the feeling of what it is to be alive. I’m intensely interested in how I can be the release of so much pain, and not absorb it myself.

Watching the election on tv is an orgasmic visual information overload. The UI on the interactive touch screens is flawless and beautiful. This is about the most educated thing I can say about what I am watching. It seems as if everyone is stuck on “think”. I don’t want to think about every minute detail. Each new fact, rapidly overstated, never saturates deeply enough to mean anything to me. So why is my breathing not flowing continuously, but quickening to keep up with the breath of the over caffeinated reporter?

I’m not an analyst, and I don’t poor over details searching for the meaning hidden in the exit polls. I wake, breathe and experience my life as it flows effortlessly from one place to another like a wonderful novel unfolding before my eyes. Each coincidence is a blessing and more and more I’m aware enough to notice and appreciate it. I’m dedicating the rest of this year to slow down, and experience the intricate subtleties of my experience. This mouth breathing, heart racing, rush to the finish line has left me winded and I am taking back my attention to focus on living a life of beauty and love.

It’s rare that gossip comes around that is positive feedback. There’s been some of that going around lately, and it makes me a happy person. The house took nine days, way more than I thought it would. I’ve always been a hurry-er, and it’s very challenging for me to slow down. I’m getting back in the swing of things. I’m framing a new website, making some new business cards, and will do a few tattoos this week. Anyone with cool ideas for me to put together a little promotional gift set for clients should email me. I’m not in a position right now to drop the cash, but the Paradise Tattoo Gathering later this month looks amazing. Hopefully they will do it again next year. Apparently the Neuma Tattoo guys have a lot to do with the event.

We’ve been remodeling the new house/studio for 3 days now. Today we pulled the old roof off of what will soon be my art studio. It was messy, but someone had to do it. I think it’s getting a new roof and new floors later this week. Pictures are up at WearTheMark.com.

I also started a new photoblog over on FeintVolition.com. It will be nice is posting pictures everyday again as motivation to take more. Not sure if I should limit myself to one a day or not.

I stopped by Sedona for a night of camping and de-stressing on my way back to Los Angeles from Phoenix. I’ve never been to Sedona before and was excited to see what it was all about. I camped at the Cave Springs campground in Oak Creek where there were about 20 skunk of all ages rummaging for food all night long. They are very cute critters once you get over the possibility of getting sprayed. I also visited one of the many vortexes and was bummed I couldn’t stay all day and meditate.

I’m patiently waiting for Sunday when I will be relocating to the LA suburb of Thousand Oaks where I will FINALLY have my own private art studio. Thus concludes the transition from my previous career as a web developer to tattooing as a primary medium. Never fear, I will still be taking on lots of different projects building websites, designing graphics, painting, and playing music.

Check out this amazing art!!!!!! (found on Draplin Design Co.)

If you would like to get involved get in touch, I would really like to start collaborating with other artists.