Thurman the Turtle: Turnstyle Thursday

Turnstyle Thursday is Portland, Maine's most accessible open mic currently located at CTN 5 community television. Turnstyle is hosted and produced by the Hidden Ladder Collective. Live collaborative paintings happen during the 3 hour event each week and everyone is invited to perform, play, dance, read, cheer, draw, paint, yell, laugh, or recite artwork. Hidden Ladder Collective won producer of the year in 2013 for Turnstyle Thursday and the open mic was nominated as one of the top 5 open mics in Portland Maine!

Being an active member (and founding member) of the Hidden Ladder Collective and one of the original organizers of Turnstyle Thursday and the collaborative art wall I wanted to create something for the fundraiser table, which helps us raise money to pay for the CTN recording studio each week. Thurman the Turtle was my mascot creation for the poster and I used three stencils and 4 different spray paints to create these posters. They are limited to only 20 and are on sale for a discounted rate of $5 available at CTN (you can also message me to buy one online).

Ride for a Ride Sketch

When I send out and sell artwork, especially my smaller sketches and drawings, I feel the need to photograph and share these images as they leave me. This was one of the original drawings for my ride for a ride concept. You can see a more fully realized painting on this subject at the bottom of my canvas kill live gallery.

Often times these tiny doodles, sketches, or drawings are the birthplaces of much grander ideas or projects. The babies. Often times the smaller more experimental works feel more important to me than larger more time consuming finished products. This feeling is also why I have a hard time throwing out any old sketch. Which leaves me with a room full of boxes and suitcases filled to the brim with drawings and sketchbooks.

This 'ride for a ride' sketch is an important work to me, but I felt it necessary to pass it on. Plop. It is dropped into the mailbox, heading to Texas. To be a part of a collectors collection.

I wonder if all artists' feel this way about their sketchbooks and doodles. Where all the real ideas stem from, where the passion is raw. If you create artwork of any kind, I would love to know if you also have this same experience. Are you attached to the first draft, the first jam session, the first sketch? Or are you more attached to the final product? Or maybe you are disconnected and can let them all flow freely without attachment?