An Idea

So I had this idea today walking home from the gym. Dungeons and Dragons was always a huge influence to me, my art began there and often returns there. It was a language I created as a kid and developed after years of playing. Before video games, which I suffer a huge addiction to, I played D&D constantly. It made high school a nightmare, but when it was over I realized that I had taught myself how to manage large projects and how to draw. If it hadn't been for D&D I would never had become an artist.

Starting D&D in 6th grade, I soon met up with Matt Puckett. Matt, my brother Dustin, and I palyed D&D for sometimes up to 30 hours straight, and often several days a week. I always prepared the adventures which Dustin and Matt's characters traveled. We added new players sometimes, and sometimes old players would leave, but it was always constant that the three of us remained.

I believe it was in 8th grade I wanted to start a new campaign. I had a firmer understanding of the game by this point and wanted to try some new ideas, which would be better to begin from scratch. Matt, Dustin and I decided it was time to adopt a steady group of players. We recruited people we knew, friends of friends, people we knew who played. As I recall we actually made a list of 10 people and called every one of them to see who would arrive. We didn't actually know most of these people very well other than that we knew they played D&D. In the end, our campaign consisted of (shout out) Lang Lee, Matt Puckett, Dustin Elias, Danny Groshong, Kit Applegate, and Justin Cross. It is important to mention these names because these people later became my very best friends, and it is hard to imagine what would have happened if this campaign had never existed.

The campaign began at level one and was played once a week from the time I was in eighth grade until far after I graduated high school. Kit Applegate and Lang Lee left the campaign but new members were added, most notably Adam Brumley. The campaign lasted so long and the stories became so awesome that several drug addictions, girlfriends, changes in school/life never broke it up. I would estimate that the campaign lasted solidly from about 1990 to about 1997-98 with little pause. The campaign became so great that in 2001, after about 2 years since the last campaign, I made a final campaign which played a few nights before I left Oklahoma for NYC.

In art school, and even now, I would draw doodles of the characters, which after so long developed personalities of their own. Even a full scale painting when the mood struck me. Everytime I saw one of my old friends, the campaign would come up. And I have always promised that it would continue.

Things are so different now. My brother Dustin has 2 kids and he's in Korea. Matt Puckett is the GM of a jewelry store in Mass. Adam Brumely is in Iraq with the National Guard. And I'm here in Florida. But waling back from the gym today, I thought that maybe this blog could be a good forum for the next chapter of our campaign. There's blog space to type, and the ability to respond, even an audience to spectate. There's new players to take on roles of new characters and the ability to make drawings and post them.

If in my artwork I could capture the same level of brilliance I did in my old D&D campaigns I would feel as though I had broken through a barrier that most artists never breach. Yet why must something like D&D be held to a lower standard than art? If one is bullshit, why is the other ivory? I've seen them both long enough to know what the value of each one is and I feel like the addition of a new chapter belongs here, with my artwork. Those who disagree never really understood what Crateart is about.

I plan to begin this soon. This post, and the next one will be posted here and on my Myspace page. I will post on these two pages only unless other oppertunities present themselves.