for all the visits, words, favs, features and all that sweet jazz. I hate it but I'll never be able to thank everyone individually...

I must thank `IreneLangholm for the feature and ~khymikaze for describing it so much better than I ever could:
"(...) modernity as it is: pollution, broken dreams, superficiality...blind minds addicted to television, and feeling safe behind the keyboard; decay of the human soul."

This portrayed Decay is there but only because we feel it as a reality. We could never translate the elements of a composition if the signs (and even symbols) are strange to us... Most of the times we need to identify. There's some sort of universal language in visually expressed imagery (and in Art in general). Has always been my preferred language. Even because, the translation is, all the times, a very subjective one, depending on our personal experiences, on what we are able to understand. This is the ultimate magic of the game and can only make this kind of communication the most fascinating, free and richer one.

"Human DK" it's not a skeptical and "negativistic" personal view on the future of humanity. It's just a casual observation of a strange present. Normally, I'm not into prophecies but when the present presents itself with such strangeness maybe there's material for me to torture my braincells. Maybe there's something for all of us to reflect about...
A big question mark (even though "doubt" is resolved by a period).

For all the feedback on my work. It's greatly appreciated.



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Quisque purus magna, auctor et, sagittis ac, posuere eu, lectus. Nam mattis, felis ut adipiscing.

An enormous "THANK YOU" to everyone who has been providing some form of feedback on my work. In truth, I haven't been replying because I've haven't been able to see my messages (comments). It's an annoying bug thing, already reported but apparently not solved yet.

GO AWAY BUG... or I'll you and make a nice cold salad.

New exhibition coming soon for moi. NY, HERE I GO!!!
It will also be the first time I'll be visiting New York. I'm all excited about this new project and the trip (any suggestions will be appreciated). I will provide more details about this solo show as soon as I have them. Would be just so great to meet some fellow deviants there. Gods, I would love that.

Lately, I've been working in collaboration with a few bands from Brazil and Korea. It has been a fantastic experience for me. Creating images for album covers and video clips is a long time dream, now made real. As soon as I can make them public, I'll be uploading to DA, to share with you - cool people.

I've also been collaborating with my friend Manuel Carmo, who is the president of a Culture Foundation in New York. It's purpose is to link the North American and European Art. For more details, please visit [link] , the website.

Too much work here, for a change. Anyway, I hope everybody is doing fine.

All the best!

IN-DEFINITION. Painting and Photo Exhibition + performance by Manuel Carmo. Lisbon Water Museum. Opening on the 3rd of July.

Sad news when I logged in today:

Our dear friend and fellow deviant Greg Leborgne died recently.

a to

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8 FACTS ABOUT ME

My dear friend `Michel-Lag-Chavarria tagged me. Merci Michel.

Here are some weird compact facts about my weird compact self:

1- I'm addicted to music, coffee and (damn!! I've tried hard to give up) cigarettes. I managed to replace them by a pipe. So now I can say "I gave up cigarettes".

2- I wear black most of the times (since I was 10). More recently I painted a room in my house totally in black. Something I had never seen and I was curious about how it would be. I liked it and it remains totally black.  
When I'm at home, I spend my days in this dark room I call "the combat area" or "the cave", working, drawing, painting and listening to music. For this reason and because I get so absorbed by these activities, I frequently loose the notion of time. I never know which day of the month is, never know which day of the week is...
When I have to say how old I am, I have to remember I was born in 1970.
My friends use to say I'm a hermit.

3- I like to cook and specially to eat. My favorite food is Italian and Portuguese. (I have failed in all my attempts to become a vegetarian, probably because I grew up convinced I was a damn predator).

4- I'm fascinated by Astronomy, Philosophy, Psychology and other things ending in "gy" like dark chocolate.

5- I've no religion and I'm not even an atheist. I've more a sort of agnostic posture, when I'm forced to think about it.

6- I'm never satisfied with my work. I always believe I can improve much more. I'm never really happy with it and I suppose I will never be.
There was a period of my artistic life that I believed I was so conceptual that the mere fact of putting my ideas on paper (or somewhere else where they could assume a physical form) would be pure waste of time. It was I believe my most creative period. I abandoned such idiocy some months later when I was invited to illustrate a book. Hard to convince them to pay me to illustrate with my brain mainly heh!

7- In my adolescence I was a football player (soccer) and I used to run in many national competitions. I was really fast and was invited by three great clubs in Portugal. Never joined any due to my natural alienation and my premature addiction to nicotine by the age of 14.

8- As a resume of my character (by my own evaluation, of course), I'm introverted, peaceful, calm, crazy, perfectionist, lonely, alienated, weird. Paradoxally (or maybe not) I'm very responsible, organized, professional.
I've no age (according to common standards), I've no religion, I don't identify with any political postures or ideals, I don't watch TV, I like the way I am.

Thanks for reading.

Now I'm supposed to tagg some victims. Hummm... lets see..

*svensson
~Mandarino
~Bernardumaine
~marzguy
=asclaire
`RetroZombie
~8025glome
!Andi-3d
~dcamacho
!tosetti
~drlew
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Forgive me my silent favs and the late replies ( I hate to do this) . Work has been too much since the 1st of September. I also started a  new activity in a partnership with some artists and photographers. We are creating an interesting project that I'll tell you more later.
Many thanks for all the recent feedback on my work here on DA. It is greatly appreciated.

---
On a different note, the poetry book "Versus Nus" by Tiago is out there. The publisher is Magna Editora. The book cover features my painting "Inner Dynamics", fact that truly honors me. The book is excellent and I recommend it to all poetry lovers.



---
FAM Magazine Printed - Issue 1 Released.
Just got mine today.

For more details, check out




You can order it online here [link]




Much


Paula

CCB - Centro cultural de Belém (Belém Cultural Center) for those who do not know, it's the largest building with cultural facilities in Portugal. Located in Lisbon, it holds the Joe Berardo Art Collection (estimated at over 316 million euros).
I visited the Berardo Collection Museum yesterday and I must say that I saw for the first time the original paintings, sculptures, interesting videos and installations of some artists that I've been admiring through the years. From Salvador Dali to Pablo Picasso, Andy Warhol, Max Ernst, Magritte, Mario Cesariny, Paula Rego, André Masson, Marcel Duchamp, Francis Bacon and many many more. All distributed by art movements  in an area of 140,000 m². (with terrible light btw). Despite the bad light design, which causes some annoying reflexes on the pieces,  it was very interesting to visit and I suggest it to anyone coming to Portugal or living here. A cool program for tourists, art aficionados and aliens like myself.
On a different note, my holidays ended, I had to update my crappy website  and I've too much work in hands right now. I must prepare my show for Coimbra, a 30 minute speech for the conference there (Gah!) and I'm also involved in a variety of projects with the portuguese author Manuel Carmo, which is an amazing and renowed artist and also a great friend of mine.
Some time ago I was talking with him about the internet and the way it has been revolutionizing the arts panorama (yes we are old enough) and Manuel decided to open an account on DA, which is a great site representing this reality.



Unfortunately, but fortunately for him, he's a very busy person and he hasn't the time to come here frequently. Even though, I decided to share this with you. I truly admire his work and hopefully we will upload more of his paintings soon.
On a funny note, I was contacted by a portuguese poet who wants to use my painting "INNER DYNAMICS" for the cover of his next poetry book. This was cool!  I allowed the use of my image after reading the whole book before it went to the publisher. It's great! I liked it! Will be published in October. Cool heh!
Ok! All for now.
Big warm hug. Enjoy the rest of Summer. I'll be around, despite the work.

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You're right, yes. Sorry!
Three journal entries by moi in less than a year, 2 months, 3 weeks and 4 days...
Any connection between this and the apocalypse falling on our heads is merely coincidental and purely unintentional.

Now, would you please call the militia or some superhero in strange stockings?
I was tagged again.  


This time by ~LADESIGNER (Can't trust neighbours these days, heh!)
Big hug Luisa. I had to accept this ahah. Thank you, my friend.

-

Welcome to my weird head, have a weird sit and enjoy your weird stay.

Paula in Weirdland presents:

WHAT MAKES ME A VERY FINE SPECIMEN OF THE WEIRDO

So, in this kind of emotional self inflicted torture and mental self abuse of my frantic neurons, I will inflict my ridiculous selfanalisys on you by making public 6 weird facts about my weird self.

Weird...
Starting by the meaning of the word "weird", me and Mr. Dictionary of Contemporary English we decided that it is a synonym for "unusual, very strange, rare".

Mmmm...
In this context, and taking my pets as a basis for comparison, excluding the possible two  aspects  that could not fit into the "weird" category, I had trouble making a selection here. The whole process took me almost 15 long coffee cups. Exactly before finishing the 15th I decided to use wide topics to make it easier for moi and resume them drastically to save your  time and patience.


1- Shoes
Since I was a child, I take my shoes off to draw or paint.
Thanks to my mum, who was very observative and noticed it, I've been aware of this fact since I was 6.
I don't know why I tend to do this. It's a preference or a habit as many others, I guess. Although it surely deprived me of experimenting real freedom moments at public school through the years.

2 - Space for space
I've always been a "minimalism freak".
I'm an industrial/equipment designer and this may sound weird to some of you (possibly maybe) but I don't like many objects around me. This includes furniture, for instances.
Lets take my house as an example. More than 90% of the whole area has nothing else than air, particles of dust and lots of smoke, among a variety of invisible particles. I select criteriously my furniture, most of it was designed by me (and Mr. Corbusier is always welcome) and I have the less I can. So free area=95%, occupied area= 4%, variable area=1% (me, inside or outside the house, more or less mentaly active. heh! I joke).
I do love space and I hope my friends like the echo as much as me, during our conversations.


3 - Colours/Colors
I suppose I'm weird in this matter.
I've a thing for the no-colours and specially for the extremities of the grayscale. I usually wear black and white. Correction: I only use black and/or white. Can't even say I'm neutral, because this has been a long time institution and a true natural preference in what relates to clothes and other despicable stuff.
On the other hand, I'm absolutely fascinated by colours. In my paintings, most of the times I'm affraid to use them. This, I believe, is related to a great respect I have for colours and for being aware of their power. When I use them, normally it's very very intentional. Colours cause a strong impact on us, don't they? It's amazing.


4 - Food
Another long term habbit is this weird preference to eat food separatedly. I mean, to eat different things isolated.
For instances, I rarely eat meat but lets suppose there's some tasty tipical portuguese meal on the table including different kinds of meat, potatoes, rice, some green boiled vegetables and a cold salad. I would invariably start by eating all the salad, then the boiled vegetables, followed by the rice, the potatoes and finally the meat. All in a most instinctive impulse.
My mum used to say this attitude resambles a "hire purchase" and she tried hard to change it.
I know eating habbits can vary greatly from culture to culture, from country to country. Although, believe me, here  in miscelaneousland it is considered weird enough.

5 - Music
I'm totally dependent on music. Nothing weird about this since my dogs like it too. Although I can listen to the same song 748748374832478932498475847 times without feeling dizzy and  irreversible insane. This is quite strange I believe.
Most of my paintings, for instances, are made listening to the same composition over and over again. It is as if I changed it it would all go to hell and enter a totally strange and different ambiance. I remain in some sort of crazy trance over a particular song and it just let it flow until I "feel like".
When I'm not home?
Well,  I take my mp3 player et voilá. Can't live without music. Seriously.
I've also a thing for guitars. Electric, classic guitars and (surprise surprise) the portuguese guitar which is an unique intrument with a very particular sound. My grandfather mastered it so I blame the genes for this cronical weirdness.


6 - Boats
I've a passion for the sea and I couldn't stand being far away from the ocean. I would be assaulted by some sort of sea-deprivation syndrome It's more a kind of addition. One more.
More secrete though has been my long time dream to live on a boat.
Weird? I'm not  sure but it seems there are not many people in Western countries living that way. So I thought it fits into the "weird" list.
I would love to live on a boat. That's a weird fact. And I'll try to make it possible some time in the future, many many euros from today.


Thank you very much for taking the time to read this weird stuff.
Now repeat after moi a 100 times:

"being weird is ok"
"being weird is ok"
"being weird is ok"
...

and we'll all feel better.  



Avalanche of hugz!

Was a crazy but nice week. You?

The weather is not perfect yet and tobacco got more expensive... AGAIN! Nice time to stop smoking... the most expensive brands.


Had to change my "current age" because a lot of people told me it was my birthday, the other day. So, as they were a majority, all in accordance and such, I believed I'm 16 now. Sorry, I meant 36.

Age...
When I think about this I always feel strange about it.  I really don't think about age, unless when I have to write it somewhere or so.
I believe it's a good sign, otherwise I would be complaining about artritis reumatoid already and... who is Mr. Alzeimher btw?
Listening to someone yesterday, I heard some interesting point of view about this. "Age", he said, "is the most relative issue. We usually call "old people" to those who have more than 10 years and "young" to those who have less 10 years than we have. In fact, I remember, when I was 9, a person in his/her twenties was really really really old. I look back now and those are kids enjoying the Spring of life. Funny as it is, age is just a crazy thing to think about during Spring. Better dream about dark chocolate and there's a lot of Metaphysicis in it.

On a similar note, I've had some extra time to dedicate to DA and I've been  uploading a lot of scraps. I just realized I've more scraps than deviations in my gallery. I just joined the club of "that's my dog, I was bored", more or less, and uploaded my dog's face in black and white, among some old vector work in the form of cartoons. Maybe I'll put some more vectors soon and some fractal experiences.


So, what's for dinner tonight?

Hope you guys have been feeling great.
Big hugz!