Adam Walls discovered why The Hood is The Hood: Holy Crap!

Wow.  Fucking wow.  That's my first thoughts after listening to this TED Talk.  Mad props to Adam Wall for doing the research on this.  I don't even know what else to say.  If you're any kind of minority, hate racism, or are interested in the affordable housing issue, just watch this talk. 

Net Neutrality is teetering on the brink of collapse

The net neutrality that has led to tons of average people creating cool web content, small businesses, innovation, and a more democratic business world is on the brink of going away.  It's been dismantled by the FCC, and is up for a very close vote in the Senate right now.  If passed it goes to the House.  So, we the people of the U.S. are in the lame ass position of hoping Washington D.C. will do the right thing and not cower to corporate interests.  Never a hopeful scenario.  This article from The Hill has recent details on the issue.

SAVE NET NEUTRALITY!

Judging Maya and Michael

 Although I'm not an official artist in the Studios at 625 on Trade here in Winston, Rachel White has welcomed me in, and is an Energizer Bunny when comes to promoting art.  She put these two drawings, done in my Sharpie art scribble style, in some competition with official judges and a cash prize.  She is always bouncing between her own projects, guiding people through wine and art projects at her Designs, Vines, and Wines, ($20, wine to sip, cool projects anyone can do and take home), promoting art, organic gardening and promoting wines.  When she gets an idea, she just goes full steam at it, so I don't even know the details yet.  But these are two of my better works, and recent ones, so we'll see what happens.  Thanks Rachel! 

Update:  It's an upcoming juried art show at Delurk Gallery that she entered me in.  

Homeless man to working artist: How I created my own job in Winston-Salem

Full disclosure:  I'm still homeless for the moment.  But I have enough work lined to to believe I'll be able to rent a room full time in the next few weeks.  The drawing of Kurt Cobain, above, was one I did for the show at Earshot Music (3254 Silas Creek, W-S).  For me, that drawing was a milestone, taking my work to another level.  Phred, owner of Earshot, used it for the online flyer, as well.  The remaining works there will be up until the end of February.

The reality of the local job market hit me at a job fair I went to in Kernersville a few years ago.  I had a doctor's appointment that morning, and showed up with my paper resume' at a large church about 10:00 am.  As I walked in, I saw the line of job seekers coming out of the multi-purpose room and heading down a hallway.  A long hallway.  I walked past the people also in line for the 100 jobs at a local plant.  The hallway turned, the line continued... and continued... and continued.  None of the people looked happy.  I was half expecting to see a "Welcome to Virginia" sign before I got to the end of the line.  By the time I got there, I had walked past about 2,500 people.  My resume' had gaps in employment (when I was homeless) and several years as a taxi driver in California, where I worked 70-100 hours a week, and was also homeless.  I lived in my taxi while as that industry collapsed due to new technology.

While most people in the line talked about the lottery-esque chance at getting one of the jobs, the Californian in me thought, "Man, I should open up a snack bar next to this line, these people need snacks...and some caffeine."  Years of being around the highly entrepreneurial people in the BMX and skateboard industries gave me a different perspective.  I had seen many, many people start their own businesses, and wind up making a good living.  Several are now millionaires.  I knew a "real job" wasn't the only answer.  Like 2,400 people in that line that day, I didn't get a job.  In fact, in applying for about 150 jobs over a couple years in this area, I only got one call back, and got turned down for that fast food job when the manager saw I was fat, over 50, and a former taxi driver.  I had never experienced anything like that.  Up until age 28, I got hired at every single job I ever applied for.  Those ranged from working at a shooting range in Idaho to being a proofreader at national magazines, to working on the stage crew of the American Gladiators TV show.  I was used to getting rejected by women, but not for jobs. 

I was living with my mom, in Kernersville, after my dad's death in 2012, and things were tense and money was tight.  Finally, in late 2015, I decided to step up my "art game," since my weird drawings with Sharpie markers were the only thing that made me any money at all.  I spent a couple of hours on the computer, looking at all kinds of art, and asking myself a simple question, "What could I draw that I would want on MY wall?"  I finally found a picture of Bruce Lee, my first childhood hero, and drew it.  I liked it.  I taped it up on my bedroom wall.  And I started asking friends online if I could draw something for them.

It started slow, and I sold the drawings really cheap, usually only getting $1 to $2 an hour for the time I spent working on them.  But I was able to draw fairly consistently, and I was able to greatly increase my skills.  I already had a unique style of drawing with Sharpie markers, something I'd been doing since actually living in an indie art gallery (while driving the owner's taxi on the weekends) in 2005-2006.  I call my technique "scribble style."  To get each final color,  I scribble several layers of colors, 3 to 8 in all, over each other.  When I got around to looking for people doing the same thing online, I found there weren't any.  My scribble style was unique, apparently in the whole world.  That surprised me, because there are a lot of people, artist Jessie Armand in particular, who do really cool things with Sharpies.  But no one does the scribble thing I do.

So I kept plugging away at it, and fighting with my mom because we never got along well to start with, and the financial pressure just kept things tense.  Even though she had a car I used, I was never able to make it here to the First Friday Gallery Hop in Winston-Salem to meet other artists and gallery owners.

At the end of May last year, I finally just packed up my stuff, stored most of it in a friend's closet, and came to Winston-Salem with about $15 in my pocket.  I already knew the city well, I worked as a taxi driver here in 2011-2012, until my dad's stroke and eventual death.  It wasn't like I was wishing on some long shot of being a world famous artist or something.  By that point, I knew I had the skills and unique style to become a working artist, and eventually make a living with my Sharpie art... if I could survive until that happened.

Homelessness is no joke.  There was a homeless man who was savagely beaten and later died here last year.  I knew him by sight, though I never talked to him.  Bad things happen on the streets, I'd been homeless enough before to know that well.  But coming here to turn my art and writing into a business was a leap of faith.  I knew intuitively that it was time to go for it, all or nothing.

I built a lean-to in a patch of woods I'd hiked in years before.  I used to go there to get some exercise when driving the taxi.  After three days with little sleep and lots of bug bites, I ran into a guy who guessed my situation, talked to me a while, and then offered me an old tent he had in his trunk.  I can't tell you how great that first night in the tent felt.  It made my existence possible as I spent my days drawing in a library or fast food joint.  The tent turned out to be huge, but didn't have a rain fly, so I got wet often during the summer thunderstorms.  I kept working away on my drawings, promoting them online, and talking to local people to look for ways to sell them.  I found little ways to make money to scrape by, and struggled day by day just to survive.  Some days a single McChicken sandwich at McDonald's served as breakfast, lunch and dinner.  Usually I could manage two cheap sandwiches and drinks there a day.

Many people asked why I didn't go to the homeless shelters to stay.  I stayed in them a few times years before, and learned they are not geared to helping people get back to work.  They're geared towards getting people into programs, usually for mental health or addiction reasons, and then getting those people to scam Social Security Disability so taxpayers have to pay their way for the rest of their lives.  There are a few people who get Disability legitimately, but they seem to be far outnumbered by lazy scammers.  I just wasn't down with that.  Plus, I had my niece's old laptop, which I used to promote my art and to blog, and laptops won't last long in any shelter.  Either it would get stolen, destroyed by some jealous goofball, or I'd get jacked for it while walking around during the day. 

But the main reason was, when you stay in a shelter you have to be inside that building by about 7 pm every night.  There's a reason for that, it keeps guys out of a lot of trouble.  I knew my future depended on meeting people in the art scene here, centered mainly on Trade Street.  Those people aren't around during the days.  I learned long ago that getting around the people making cool stuff happen is the key to success in anything.  In the shelters, the majority of guys spend their time arguing, playing spades, or stealing socks.  Those aren't the people who could help my new career happen.  So I chose the woods.

That, of course, has its own set of issues.  The biggest thing most people don't understand about homelessness is that, the minute you become homeless, going to the bathroom and sleeping become illegal.  You can literally get arrested for going to the bathroom in a business if you don't buy something, or sleeping anywhere.  Last fall I managed to get arrested, for the first time in my 51 year life, for buying donuts.  Technically, the charges were trespassing and resisting arrest.  But I literally got arrested for walking into a store (that I had been told to leave, and did leave, earlier)and buying a pack of donuts.  I jumped when the officer grabbed me from behind, which qualifies as "resisting" in their eyes.  So in addition to to the other challenges of trying to go from homeless to small business person, I spent three days in jail.  Generally I'm a fan of trying new things, but I don't recommend that one.  Avoid jail if you can.

Back to the tent.  I'm sure most of you have gone camping at some point, and had your adventures.  But sleeping in the tent night after night led to a few new adventures.  I huddled under my rain poncho during the most intense thunderstorm I've ever witnessed.  I had raccoons and a fox wander by at night.  I found a baby snake in my tent one morning.  That was interesting.  I managed to catch it in a little box I used as a soap box, and let him loose by a fallen log.  Win-win for both of us.  I spent many wet, soggy, cold, and not-so-happy nights in the tent.

One night I returned to find some kids had thrown sticks and ripped my tent.  I patched it up with shipping tape.  Another time my tent had been searched, everything gone through, (I don't drink, smoke, or do drugs, just for the record) and there was a three foot long knife cut in the side of my tent.  There were two pairs of blue latex gloves discarded on the trail out.  I'm pretty sure who was responsible for that.  I'm homeless, there was nothing I could do about it, except patch the rip with more shipping tape, and just keep pressing on day after day.

In my days in BMX freestyle, there's one lesson we all learned early, on the physical level.  When you fall down, get back up and try again.  It becomes ingrained in BMXers, skateboarders, and action sports athletes of any kind.  We just don't give up.  That's a big part of why so many action sports people become successful in business later on.   

One night I returned in the dark, tired and just wanting to go to sleep, when I found people in my tent.  At that point, anything can happen.  Luckily for all involved, they went on their way as I politely, but firmly, told them to leave.  They're my "neighbors" now.  They have their own tent or something.  My tent collapsed under the six inches of snow we got in January.  I managed to afford a motel room that night, but I spent the next two nights huddled in the wet and partially collapsed tent until I got it shoveled off and back up.

Then came a break.  A couple of guys watching me draw at a McDonald's commented on my work, which was a picture of a musician.  They said I should go talk to the people at the music shop across the street.  So I did.  Within a short time, Phred and Jane from Earshot Music put a couple of my drawings up on the shop wall.  The response was good, so Jane asked me to do several more and do a proper show there.  I spent the late summer and early fall drawing as much as possible, so I could make it happen.  That's the show that the drawing above is a flyer for.  Several pieces have sold, and led to more orders.  I knew that was my shot, and I ran with it.  I owe a huge thanks to Phred and Jane for giving a chance to a sketchy, and usually smelly, homeless guy, based on my work itself.

Around the same time, I finally made it down to the First Friday Gallery Hop on Trade (and Liberty) Street.  I wandered around, with my big sketch pad in wrapped in garbage bags (to keep rain out), and showed my work to anyone interested.  I started talking to a woman named Luba, who really liked my stuff.  She led me around, showing my work to everyone she could find.  She introduced me to Rachel White, of Designs,Vines, & Wines who's in the Studios at 625 building on Trade Street.  I went by the next couple First Fridays, and Rachel put some of my work up in here area, and dubbed me a "featured artist" for the month of February.  Rachel is an Energizer bunny when it comes to promotion, and has helped me immensely, and I have to give her a big shout out for all her help.  My Michael Jackson drawing and one of Maya Angelou are in her front window, along with great work from other artists, right now.

Between Earshot Music, Designs, Vines, and Wines, and my own online promotion, I now have a solid six weeks of paying work lined up.  That means I need to finish up this blog post and get back to work pretty quick.  I'm writing this post now because it seems I have finally reached the tipping point where I can say I'll be able to get a place to live, and make a living, as an artist, from now on.  It's been a wild ride, and I don't expect the craziness to end, but I feel I'm at the starting point of a legitimate new career and some great opportunities.

I'd also like to thank Lisa O'Donnell from the Winston-Salem Journal.  She did the initial artist profile on me tying into the Earshot show, and has become a friend as well.  My friends Rick and Ben have also been lifesavers during these last crazy months, and I owe both of them big thanks (and some money) as well.  Thanks guys!

So that's the recent part of my story.  I need to keep working every day, do my community service and pay my fine from my arrest, and try to stay out of the types of trouble that plague homeless people.  I'm writing this now to show that it is possible for someone here in the Triad to create their own job, even starting from a low level like homelessness.

You can see four recent drawings of mine in the last post.  You've found my blog, where I write about several subjects, and share my artwork.  I was a writer long before I was serious as an artist.  You can check out my drawings in person at:

Earshot Music - 3254 Silas Creek Pkwy, W-S (right next to Marshall's, same shopping center as A.C. Moore and Toys-R-Us, across from Hanes Mall.)  Five drawings are still up until the end of Feb., probably a couple up after that.

Designs, Vines &Wines/Studios at 625 - at, you guessed it, 625 Trade Street, downtown Winston Salem.  Several drawings are up there right now, and a few small signed prints are available as well.

What I do best is... 18" X 24" drawings of musicians, athletes, or other performers.  For now, I work from photos of taken by others, but once I finally get a decent camera, I'll shoot my own photos to draw from.

  Here's my other social media info:

Facebook fan page: Steve Emig The White Bear 
Facebook page: Steve Emig (in Winston-Salem)  
Pinterest:  https://www.pinterest.com/stevenemig13/my-sharpie-art-20172018/
Likes, shares, and shameless promotion are always welcome...


I don't have a phone, really kids, I don't, so no Instagram or Twitter yet.  You can reach me at: stevenemig13@gmail.com if you have questions, comments, or want me to draw you something.  It's "steven", not steve, don't forget the "n".  

"The White Bear" is my nickname/penname from the BMX days of the early 90's, and a lot of people in that world know me best by that name.  It has nothing to do with race.  It came from a poem I wrote when my first really serious girlfriend dumped me way back when.  My roommate Chris read the poem, and started calling me The White Bear to harass me.  The nickname stuck.

Recent Sharpie art 2/23/2018

 I was asked to draw Jerry Garcia of The Grateful Dead, and put the drawing on Facebook while waiting to get paid for it.  A friend in California wanted to buy it.  So I did this second Jerry Garcia drawing for her.  I never got paid for the first one, so it's now on sale at Studios at 625 on Trade Street (in Winston-Salem).  Sharpies on paper, 18" X 24"

 A man who'd bought a couple other drawings asked if I could do an "amazing" Michael Jackson drawing.  He never got back to me when I sent him the photo of this one.  It's now in the front window of Studios at 625 on Trade Street, and is for sale.  Sharpies on paper, 18" X 24".

I drew this Tupac for my show at Earshot Music (Silas Creek at Hanes Mall Blvd./next to Marshall's), but it sold before it made it up on the wall.  Sharpies on paper, 18" X 24".

This one is my favorite of the recent ones, my tribute to the song "Tainted Love."  The Marilyn Manson version of the song has a web edit with Harley Quinn and The Joker from the Suicide Squad movie, and I thought that would be fun to do.  Honestly, I did this one just for myself, but it is up on the wall for sale at Earshot Music.  Sharpies on paper, 18" X 24".

All of these drawings took 25 to about 40 hours to draw, and are colored with my unique Sharpie "scribble style," where I scribble three to eight layers of different colors to arrive at the final color.  This is my own unique style, which I've been doing for 12 years now.  At the moment, I have work lined up to do for the next five weeks or so, but if you're interested in a drawing after that you can email me at stevenemig13@gmail.com . I go by Steve, but my email is "steven," don't forget the "n".  Or you can check out my finished works at Earshot Music (til the end of February) or Studios at 625, at 625 Trade Street in Winston-Salem. 

I'd like to give a HUGE Thank You to Phred and Jane Buck at Earshot Music, and Rachel White at Studios at 625 for giving my work a chance to be seen locally.  I also want to shout out all the people from the old school BMX and Facebook world who bought drawings over the last couple years as I worked to hone my skills and turn this into an actual job.  Thanks everyone!

Would you live in a town Google built?

I found this video by Nick Paris, who lives in Toronto apparently.  He does a really good job at gleaning the very limited details out of the initial plan.  Here's the basics: Alphabet, the parent company of Google, has a unit called Sidewalk Labs.  Sidewalk's mission is to figure out how to make cities better using today's ever changing technology.  They were looking for a place to try out these ideas in an actual community, and decided on an area of the Toronto waterfront known as Quayside (pronounced keyside).  So it's an empty chunk of land right now, and prone to flooding, which seems like a dodgy place to start.  But, hey, they're Google (sort of), they fart money, they can afford it.

They're going to spend a year planning with the local development people, and getting it up to spec on the flood issue.  Then they are going to build a neighborhood with "modular" buildings.  Yeah, that's the fancy word for trailer parks, but this will be a new kind of modular.  The building will have a strong outer framework, and minimal stuff inside.  This way, either they will switch modules out, or change the insides quickly somehow, when a building changes purpose.  So far, that sounds good.

Sidewalk developers will try to get a chunk, maybe 20%, of energy from renewable sources in the area itself.  This will be done with heat and solar collection, it appears.  Again, sounds cool.  Then they will try to encourage people to walk or ride bikes as much as possible in the neighborhood.  Sounds good, except, this is Toronto.  CANADA.  They have winter... SERIOUS winter.  So the bike riding may suffer half of the year.  Even so, sounds good.

There will also be sensors all over the freakin' place, which means your every move will likely be tracked even more than it is in our current world.  That could get really crazy.  I mean, will the toilet send you a text message if you take  a big dump and nearly clog it, like "eat more fiber this afternoon or you'll be banned from pooping in the neighborhood."  I doubt it will go that far, but who knows what it will be like in a completely sensor rich environment.  This is a double edged sword and will probably be good and bad in ways.

Another thing is that they will have "taxibots" (as a former taxi driver, that bums me out) and "vanbots" to drive people around.  They ultimately want to ban traditional vehicles from the neighborhood, except for emergency vehicles.  So... no old guys with classic cars living there, and no rat rods.  But also, no assholes doing 70 mph down a residential street at 3am.

The housing is aimed to be affordable for a much wider group of people.  That's good, Toronto is, in many ways, one of the more progressive cities out there, and rent is fucking ridiculous from what I hear.  Affordable housing, starting with tiny units of about 150 square feet, will be available, as will larger units and some kind of new, creative financing.  So what does that mean?  Yeah, you guessed it, in a couple years, you to could be Korbin Dallas from The Fifth Element, except you'd be out of work because he was a taxi driver.  Lelu multipass?  I doubt it.  


OK, not exactly what it will look like, but it is about the right size. 

So, will Quayside in Toronto show us the future?  Or will it be a lame-ass group of boring tech-tards trying to hack the taxibots to pick-up strippers or drive their friends out onto the Lake Ontario ice in the winter?  Who knows?  Will Quayside look as stupid in 40 years as Tomorrowland in Disneyland looked in 1995? 

Hey, Google and their co-companies have a shitload of money and know tech.  They will probably come up with a ton a really good things to help our cities in the future.  But will it be a place we want to live?  I really don't know.  Time will tell. 

Here's the feature story in The Atlantic about this project.

Here's a short promo video that makes the idea look really good.

Alright, let's get to work! 2/20/2018

On the art front, things have just jumped to light speed.  Unable to find a "real job" for years here in central NC, I decided to step up my art game a little over two years ago, and turn it into a business.  I've been plugging away at drawings of people in my unique Sharpie marker "scribble style" ever since.  But I haven't been making a living.  I made the necessary move here to Winston-Salem last summer where the best regional art scene is, despite my lack of money for little things like, you know, rent and food.  Things have been crazy since, and sketchy as a junior high art class.  But I now have my drawings up in two great locations, and just sold three of them, including the Johnny Cash "Man in Black" drawing above. 

I was stoked that this all happened in a couple of days.  It's the exact opposite of what happened a month or so ago, when a couple people asked me to do drawings, then ghosted when it came time to pay.  So the recent sales allowed me to rent a "cheap" motel room for a couple nights, and indulge in a luxurious $5 pepperoni pizza from Little Caesar's.  Make fun if you like, I love those pizzas.  I definitely needed a break from my sketchy existence, and really, REALLY needed a shower. 

Then, more surprises.  Good ones.  I have orders for more drawings, besides the couple smaller drawings I was getting ready to start.  I am STOKED!  If things work out, which is never assured in creative work, I could make the jump back to having a stable roof over my head in a matter of weeks.  I might be busy for the next six weeks solid.  That's a real good thing. 

Like I said, it's like somebody flipped a switch and said, "OK, start buying Steve's drawings."  I was telling a friend last week that creative work is like that, you just plug along working, promoting the work how you can, and then a sudden leap seems to come out of nowhere.  Alright, let's get to work.