dear diary

I got these little bad boys in the mail the other day and have been dying to put them to use. 

These are Moleskine (pronounced mole-skin) journals, and are by far my favorite journals of them all. These legendary notebooks began in France by a small French bookbinder and soon traveled its way into today’s world of instant imagination recording. These journals come in all shapes and styles—there are ruled journals, squared journals, blank journals, even agenda-setting journals. And all have little pockets in the back to keep those I-might-use-this-at-one-point-in-my-life things with you. Some notable Moleskine notebook users include Vincent van Gogh, Pablo Picasso and Ernest Hemingway. 

Actually, if I can name drop, my brother is the epitome of a Moleskine user. He's been coming up with some rad designs in his notebooks over the years, and has made them into a nifty little business.

Enough of this talk, I think the Moleskine motto says it all, “a brand that identifies a family of notebooks, diaries, and city guides: flexible and brilliantly simple tools for use both in everyday and extraordinary circumstances, ultimately becoming an integral part of one’s identity.” So, long story short, I got some notebooks and love them, and now want to share them with everyone.

printmaking preview

Some bike prints I've been working on...

and.begin.

I’ve put this off for too long. Here it is.

I love travel.

Growing up in a place like this

And now living in a place like this

Makes me believe that I could be anywhere, doing anything (almost), yet at the same time, I’m still tied to what I do.

This is a place for that.

For better or for worse, I know I wasn’t meant to sit still. I like a lot of things. Art (very ambiguous, I know), music (if it sounds right), sports (if it brings people together), food (not cilantro, please), and so on...

So here is my misshapen, oddly formed way of entering into this blog’s purpose.

Like a traveling knot that be linked to many things near and far, good and bad—right here, right now—I’m tying this blog to my journey to get to these places.

La Chureca, Nicaragua

Osaka, Japan

Why these places? Well, I’ll tell you.

First, my friend, Alex, has been going to Nicaragua for three years now, and has been working in a place called La Chureca (Spanish for “The Dump”). You may have heard of this place because of Love, Light, and Melody (an organization brought forth by the collaboration of Braddigan and the likes). Alex worked closely with a refuge camp called Villa Esperanza who focused on rescuing girls in La Chureca who are at risk of be prostituted by their parents. If that doesn’t set you over, their parents prostitute their girls to garbage truck drivers in order to get first pick of the garbage…if you didn’t understand that—parents prostitute their daughters for garbage!

So I’ll be working with the Alex and his team for a week and a half (May 23-June 2).

Next stop will be Japan at the end of June (June 28-July 16 to be exact). I was invited to apply to the Southern California Seahorses. I know nothing about the team, but their gig seems pretty sweet. Play soccer games with girls from other countries and play soccer with kids. Could it get any better? I think not.

I have three-ish months to raise enough money to go to these places, so I will be pulling out all my tricks I’ve learned over the years to get there.

What’s under my control is to make things like this

                                                        

And sell it through avenues like this

Or through this blog, obviously.