Hey folks, things are moving slowly, though i am maintaining a new blog over here >> michaellothianart.wordpress.com <<<< If you can click on over and make the jump!

I am nutting out a lot of stuff, spring cleaning for the soul i guess, anyway hope you dig it?

Because i won’t be back around here no more 😦

This blog will become unused in time to come, a new blog is emerging however, this will reflect my present and future changes in art & life, which can be found here!

I am not running on a timetable on deadline, things will happen when they happen, hope you can join me when it does?

Peace.

Mike

Folks, more email woes, my website email is not even letting me in now, things are going from bad to worse! DOes any one out there use squirrel mail? if so do you have the same issues?

I will endeavour to sort it all out……….. though, if you are try’n to email me don’t bother it won’t get to me, leave a message hear on the blog or use jesta157@hotmail.com until further notice?

Thanx for your patience!

Mike

I have always liked Rob Machado’s surfing and find him to be an interesting character in the world of surfing.  Whilst i think most surfing magazines and the pro circuit with it’s associated industries amounts to nothing more then porn and that this movie would of taken some $$$, that Rob himself is largely sponsored by HURLEY which is basically NIKE in disguise, that any informed person couldn’t swallow this whole drop out of society, pseudo “morning of the earth” renaissance thing for absolute gospel, but what the heck……. it looks good and i need the escapism, ride on Rob,  Johnny Cash walked the line, perhaps you are walking  the fence brother and this movie deals with that, no judgement from me…….. but thanks for the free ride.

CHANGE

Change To alter; to make different; to cause to pass from one state to another; as, to change the position, character, or appearance of a thing; to change the countenance.

There is one definite constant in life and that is the unending cycle of change as part of the human condition and experience.

As an example, a river’s health is caculated in terms of it flow and thus a flowing river is for the most part cleaner and inhabited by more species of life, a stream that loses it flow and cycle of fresh water becomes stagnant, unclean and unable to hold or maintan life and so it also unable to give that all inportant ingredient to animals and people that so depend on water…… Life!

A life with out change, reflection, anaylsis and decision is like a stagnant river, going no where and unable to support the life that is needed to progress to new areas of thought, being and accomplishment!

I have spoken of change many times in the past, however mostly in context of the hope that each new year would bring with it new possibilities and a new perspective, this doesn’t always work though, resolutions can be so contrived and pinned on flaky non-active kinds of hope, rather then mental or phsycial decisive actions  and so for me i have decided to take time out to actually reassess, recharge and eventually re-engage in what art means to me, what i want from it and as to what i what to give back!

I am rather an opinionated person and i mostly have an opinion on 98% of stuff out there, but opinons are worthless, because they are usually given for free, ill concieved and based on some form of belief rather then knowledge, where as the two need to walk hand in hand! Advice is often the same and at the moment i want to give neither and as much as in this blog posting i am anaylsising and just speaking out loud with no scrip or edit button in positon, i am trying to be truthful, honest….. with myself, this is for me, i want to do art for me, so that it is meaningful again and not enslaved to various motivations that serve to be counter productive to true expression, art is about communication, expression, function, spirituality, the self, culture and what i truly believe, art is the pinicle of skillful pursuits, i seek to become skillful, skill takes time to acquire and time is something we do not use wisely, youth is wastedon the youth and only the old man knows what it is best used for, so i seek to use hat youth i have left and create in a manner that i have never before!

I am closing down my website, my REDBUBBLE site will remian open along with my FLICKR pages and this BLOG will be a constant window to the world aswell. I do not know when my website will be back up if ever, i have no timetable for it, i percieve one day at a time from now on and choose to focus solely on my family and art, i moved ever so strong to strip back my life and enter a simple life, a life with out distraction, of deep contemplation and action, of selflessness whilst diging deep into mt artist passion, finding a balance between the two!

I will look into the nature of my relationships as a foundation to my art, namingly my wife, our connection, between earth, water, sky and GOD.

I will always come here periodically, though not out of some obligation to maintain it, more so when i am moved to do so…..

Thanx for reading,

Mike

In the tongue of my fore fathers

Nì òigear leisg bodach brisg.
A lazy youth will make an active old man.

Hey peoples, in a couple of days i am leaving the shores of Australia and entering a metal bird and crossing the ditch by air. Yes i am going to New Zealand! So anyone wanting work done by me over the following weeks will have to wait patiently, as i hit the road and travel the country side of Aotearoa meeting great people and seeing beautiful places!

For those people living in New Zealand…… keep an eye out for a long haired fellow driving a graffiti covered van through the hills of Aotearoa…. that’ll be me, make sure you wave & say g’day! 🙂

Hopefully i will have periodic access to the internet and put up activities here on your computer screen?

Otherwise be patient and i will be back doing artworks for my clients in mid May?

Catch ya soon!

Mike

Every year new year, things abound with the prospect of newness and change, whilst the familiar insists on repeating its regularity with out so much of a whisper of change, the two live in symbiosis it would seem? Though i have come to realise that change is not a matter of chance, but tightly wrapped up within the human ability to choose and make change happen, because we become that change. If we are to wait for change chances are we will only see things change around us, in such a state things grow stagnant and thus stop growing altogether, all the time we sit hoping for that change to come our way?

In these moments of introspection we take stock, this is very much a spiritual process as much as it is a matter in doing things that practical!

Sunset Studio must always change and since Sunset Studio is me, it is I that must change! Change is our only certainty in life, besides paying taxes and dying, though those latter two i am not speaking of here………… change is go(o)d.

So with this blog change is first happening here, a new style website is under construction also.

Hang onto your seats, 2009 is a year of change, of good and bad change of uncertainty for many, though as long as you are the one changing and changing for the better, the better placed you are to weather what may come and except that which you can not change… for as we atempt to master life, we find it is indeed master of us………………. taking stock is necessary and change a prerequisite for living, living more abundantly!

Changes coming real soon to SUNSET STUDIO ! 🙂

I received an email today, unlike all those other annoying emails, enlarge this, manhood that, enter this contest and win$$$, questionaires etc etc etc, delte, delete, delete!

I thought it incredibly worthy of sharing here !

Please take the time to read and click on the links………………………………. we dam well haven’t learnt a thing!

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

Dear Michael, My name is Sep Galeva. I’m from a forest community in Lake Murray, in the Paradise Forests of Papua New Guinea. My family has lived here for around six generations. Our survival relies entirely on the forest. This short video tells you more about our forest home. Illegal logging has been destroying our forest heritage, our ancestors’ sacred sites and important wildlife habitat. The rate of destruction in our forests is higher than anywhere in the world and since 2002, I have been dedicated to stopping this. With the help of Greenpeace and other local non-profit organisations, we launched a successful campaign to stop illegal logging in my home Lake Murray. For this I received death threats but I am determined to keep fighting. Now, I am working with other communities to stop the destruction.  One of the ways we’re doing this is by providing communities with real alternatives. Can you help by making a contribution to our work?  Your donation will help communities to stand up to the loggers and preserve the forests for future generations. We have a long fight ahead of us and I really hope you can help. Please click here to make a contribution. Thank you for your support. Kind regards, Sep ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

THE THING I HATE MOST ABOUT ADVERTISING IS THAT IT ATTRACTS ALL THE BRIGHT, CREATIVE AND AMBITIOUS YOUNG PEOPLE, LEAVING US MAINLY WITH THE SLOW AND SELF-OBSESSED TO BECOME OUR ARTISTS. MODERN ART IS A DISASTER AREA. NEVER IN THE FIELD OF HUMAN HISTORY HAS SO MUCH BEEN USED BY SO MANY TO SAY SO LITTLE.

BANKSY.

By now you would of realised that i kind of dig collage, heaps!
Well thee are many folk out there that love working in paper in its various forms.
One such person is GreenBeanbaby…… one cool chick, mum (or MOM) and wife, who occasionally goes by the name of Ellia Hill. Some of her work or as she terms it “cut paper love” is whimsical, inviting and fun.. colourful to say the least!

Naked Fairy By GreenBeanBaby

Some time ago she interveiwed me and did a posting of little ole’ me and my work on her groovey blog!
An interveiw as MikeyFreedom……. yes, one of my lesser known incarnations….. well my flickr disguise anywayz?

So go on over to her blog, check out the interveiw and stroll about her blog!
She is in the throws of creating a childrens book amid many other things, so check it out peoples!

GREENBEANBABY