-Mastercopies and Skateboards-

                

        There's one corner of my room that reminds me of my own duality.  I have a palette hanging on the wall, along with some mastercopies and below them are my skateboards.  Skateboarding fascinates me just as painting does and I have spent much time analyzing why they do.  They are obsessions and extremes of one another.   They  encourage me to balance my efforts in life between physical and mental.  And they also both take me to extremes of my emotion.  This is a result of the frustration in both activities.  I can feel the highest thrills in both and the lowest lows in both.  I am by no means a talented skater, but I get very much satisfaction from it.    
         I also think of them in the same terms when I want to improve; there's no way to improve in painting without a brush in your hand and there's no way to improve in skating unless you spend time on the board.  It's all a matter of how many hours you've clocked and how many times you've fallen or made a failure painting.  It's interesting how fine tuning a skateboard to make the trucks looser or tighter only matters if you've attained a high level of skill.  Just like how mediums and surfaces only matter to higher level painters.  The beginner should not concern themselves with such things as medium ratios.  The only thing that matters in the beginning is productivity and creating work.   It's a yin and yang balance between an extreme sport and a quiet activity which requires self reflection.   An enamel finish on a painting and a kickflip down a 20 stair excite me and I will continue to increase my knowledge of both activities.

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