Out of Steam

11th October 2013

Dear Cassi,

The only way to describe my feelings at the moment is ‘out of steam’. I came home after work and drew another image for a letter but could find in me no further inspiration of energy to work so I lay down in bed accompanied by the two black and white cats Hyde and Sneak. This kicked off my normal dance of sleep and waking that has continued until now at nine at night.

I feel nagging weight in my shoulders dragging me down like anchors, and still I rumble off to work again sifting through the litter of unfinished projects and half formed ideas. Work is slow as the first wonderful chill enters the autumn air.

To be honest I’m frustrated and angry with my life falling back into the rut I suffered in college. I feel like I’ve progressed as a person and that I have become both a stronger and more prolific artist. My latest trick is to draw images and add the lettering in digitally by saving it as a PDF file and then opening the file in Photoshop.

This offers up cleaner text than Photoshop or the printer can furnish in fonts that I proffer. The process can be lengthy and I still haven’t worked out all the kinks, but now I can draw at work with only blank paper. To be honest this is almost nothing of a boon, as I put drawing away at work whenever there is something to do and that happens more and more.

The goal of a professional security officer is to stay sharp during shift and drawing keeps my mind going, but I have always wanted to switch to math. Sounds like a funny thing to do, but you notice everything else in the room when you’re working math equations.



Do what works, little sister,





Richard Leland Neal