Summer is almost over and autumn is near. As a kid, that’s the kind of “glass is half empty” perspective I had once July came to an end and just a few weeks remained of summer vacation. For the most part, I enjoyed my earliest summers in L.A. Barefoot, pool-hopping, munching on a slice of slippery pizza, making some fast cash after washing a neighbor’s car or mowing a lawn for a couple of bucks.

It was freedom with a capital F and there were almost no boundaries of where to go, what to do and who to hang out with. And as long as I wasn’t home too early, my mother would be fast asleep by the time I snuck into to my bedroom.

Today, I see the end of summer as somewhat of a relief. Don’t get me wrong, I fully embrace the few summer months we get up here in northern Europe. But my ongoing projects are more or less in a lull once the year’s most sociable season kicks in. Not that I don’t work on them, just not nearly as much as when the weather is less hospitable and our social calendar is less full.

I love this image (captured in Vejbystrand) as it reminds me so much of the forthcoming fall.

A quick post from Lech Wałęsa’s Gdansk.

I’m sure that my personal list of places I want to experience live is longer than most folks. I can’t back that statement up with any scientific stats, but it might be true for most visual artists. Inspiration comes from all kinds of sources, and for me, travel is certainly my preferred fountainhead.

I’ve wanted to visit Gdansk ever since hearing about Lech Wałęsa, famous for his political activism and the Solidarity movement he founded in the Polish city’s sprawling shipyard. I vividly remember being almost as intrigued by the industrial scenery shown on television and in newspapers as I was by his formidable success at ushering in a new era in Poland and eventually, the entire Eastern Bloc.

Yesterday was my 59th birthday. A year shy of an arguably more significant milestone. Since SAS screwed up our plans to celebrate my birthday with a few days in Tromsø, true to our ability to always figure out a good “Plan B”, Charlotte and I flew to Gdansk instead. It’s my second trip to Poland (I was in Krakow last year) and I am really enjoying each new visit to this country. Gdansk seems to be a thriving place with a young, energetic population and a ton of inspiring visual experiences.

We’re enjoying a rare heatwave in Sweden. It’s not nearly as humid as I’m relatively accustomed to in southern Europe or in South East Asia. It’s a dryer heat here that reminds me more of places like Death Valley, Joshua Tree, and New Mexico. I’m certainly not complaining and I’d gladly give up the terrible winters here in Malmö for this kind of weather all year round. That said, I was hoping for a trip to the far north of Norway. But, due to the SAS strike, that isn’t going to happen. Instead, we’ll look to the east to celebrate my birthday…

The above image is of course part of my ongoing Resurfaced art series.

I can’t explain it, but for some reason, like most boys and men, I have a fascination with just about anything that has a motor and moves. Is it the soothing soundscape a car evokes while idling or the loudness from a revving motorcycle? Or, is it the high-pitched frequencies of a jet engine during landing and takeoff that create the almost hypnotic allure?

Maybe, just maybe, it’s genetic. Perhaps men are programmed to find loud noises intriguing somehow. That we get some kind of hormonal reward from confronting (and mastering) the mechanical beast.

Once again in Stockholm to work on the Resurfaced project, meet friends and reunite with my cousins. For once, I’m not staying at a hotel in the capital as one of my oldest friends here is traveling abroad and very generously provided her apartment in the cozy Söder neighborhood.

The ride up from Malmö was relatively smooth. I sat with my back towards the direction of the train – which was fine – and enjoyed viewing all the lush summer landscapes swishing by.

Here’s an abandoned house somewhere on the outskirts of Sorrento along the Amalfi Coast in Italy. I’ve collected some of my images from that visit over at www.raboffphotography.com/amalfi-coast

As a younger artist, whenever I honestly and seriously delved into a creative project, almost any kind of exhibition project, and then discovered how much I enjoyed working on it no matter how long it took to complete, I would typically find it hard to understand how anyone could possibly think otherwise. Some might call this obsessive, borderline narcissistic behavior, and maybe it is. But art is demanding and if you aren’t fully immersed and don’t believe what you’re working on is the most important thing in your life, I wonder if what you produce is actually worth working on in the first place.

Honest art, as opposed to decorative art, is demanding, ruthless, and usually misunderstood.

While the passion wasn’t exactly overpowering, I remember often feeling an intoxicating surge of happiness that made me want to share the discovery and the ensuing enthusiasm with anybody willing to listen to me.

In retrospect, I realize that it might as well have been my enthusiasm rather than the creative output that generated the positive feedback. I’ve spoken at some length with fellow artists about this phenomenon which is in some distant way related to subliminally creating hysteria. Enthusiasm is undeniably smiting and I am just as guilty as anyone else for getting excited about the excitement rather than the work it has exuded.

My ongoing “Resurfaced” series is a great example of this occurrence. I honestly don’t think most people really get the concept but are nonetheless thrilled to be smitten by my enthusiasm for it. This might be a reflection of how little enthusiasm they have in their lives, but that’s a whole different topic for another post.

The pursuit for new artifacts for the Resurfaced series is unwavering, regardless of how commercially viable the project turns out to be. The voice of reason has long left the building. And creatively, that’s a good thing.

The piece above is from a wall in the Saint Pauli district of Hamburg, Germany.

Charlotte and I counted that all-in-all, so far, we’ve attended 9 weddings. That’s including our own. This snapshot is from Saturday’s fairytale wedding outside of Saint Alban’s Church in Copenhagen where my cousin Per’s son Hugo and his lovely Christina were married. It was a most beautiful day full of sunshine and love.

That so many flag-waving Americans hold the Second Amendment so dearly to their heart is really hard for me to grasp. It’s Second Amendment insanity if you ask me. The Bill of Rights amendment was ratified in 1791, a long, long time ago when bears, mountain lions, and outlaws were omnipresent. It was an era when being an owner of slaves and a misogynist were both acceptable and admired behavior. It was over 200 fucking years ago.

I totally understand that the Second Amendment has been weaponized politically. It’s all about belonging to the movement. And that the masses that don’t understand why automatic rifles and military-grade weapons should not be so readily available to them simply don’t have the capacity to look beyond their mental rigidity. Well, I get that, too.

The federal legislators in D.C. need to be reminded of how the regulations put in place within the automotive industry – from seatbelts, and airbags to speed limits – have literally saved millions of lives.

Whenever I read or hear about the idiots that insist on being able to stock up on AK-47s, mostly out of principle, I think of this wonderfully poignant sketch.