Hello, all.

I don’t know if anyone still keeps up with this silent little dA account, but if you do, this message is for you.

As of now, I am leaving dA. This isn’t, I’m sure, a wildly huge announcement given the sheer inactivity I’ve demonstrated in recent months, but I thought a parting remark or two was appropriate.

I suppose I should explain my reasons a little.

I maintained my deviantArt account throughout high school, and, indeed, the work I posted to dA consumed much of my free time during high school. However, as time progressed, I became less visually oriented and turned more toward what I currently pursue – writing and literature. This meant that the “art” I had previously produce in excess amounts dropped in quality (the turning point was the summer of 2006, I believe), and my gallery became full of sketches, unfinished pieces, or work that simply wasn’t up to par. Some of it was solid, and much of it I remain immensely fond of, but the vast majority of the work was not of high quality and simply exemplified my laziness and unwillingness to finish what I’d begun. At the same time, the gallery ceased to reflect my change of focus. Very, very little writing entered the gallery. Those few pieces that did enter the gallery are the same few pieces I have used over and over as examples of my work for anything from college applications to my own personal website. A few incredibly awful poems also made it into the gallery.

Meanwhile, the nature of my life was changing. I became less of sad and alone, less of friendless, and ultimately began to have a richer life experience outside of my singularly mental existence. Work load from school increased, the pressure to obtain jobs increased, and ultimately the amount of time I spent creating decreased. I was becoming involved in school clubs, I was applying to college, I was spending weekends at MassArt with Mare, I was dating (finally!), and I was becoming embroiled in the life of the present rather than the life of the mind. What time I still spent in front of the computer tended to be time spent surfing the internet. I’m not sure why that is. Perhaps just lethargy.

Ultimately, all these factors blended to create the following situation: I haven’t done a single thing on this account since winter of last year (2008).

Even before that low point, my posts had been increasingly irregular.

So. One reason for disappearing now is that I already have been gone. It’s just a matter of making it official now.

Thus, in making it official, I have taken down all of my past deviations – all 248 of them. Actually, it’s probably more accurate to say that I’m making my absence official because I am taking my deviations down. It’s something I’ve been considering for a while. I’m not really comfortable having all of this half-assed work that represents the basic conceptualization of a number of would-be novels floating about the internet anymore. Of course, it’s out there now, whether I take it down or not, but it makes me feel better to limit the access.

The main thing, really, is that I want to be professional in my work. Or at least have some semblance of professionalism. Maybe it’s because Emerson College is very big on the idea of “Your career starts now” and suchlike, or maybe it’s just that I’m not satisfied with simply putting myself out there anymore. I can’t really say for certain; nothing in my life is very certain at this moment.

But I can say that dA has never been the place for my desire for professionalism. I’ve always kept it silly, laidback.

Well, that won’t do anymore. If my work is to be online, it will be representative. Something I can show to anyone from potential employers to friends curious about how I spend my time. It will be professional – but still fun! – and it will be good work. Or, if it is the half-assed conceptual images, then it will be presented with the understanding that what I am showing exists purely as a form of brainstorming rather than as a stand-alone piece.

And I intend to be more selective with what I put out in the world; I won’t be putting the entirety of my work out there. I’ll be providing only summaries, synopsis, and an image or two to illustrate.

I don’t think dA is the place for me to do this, and, frankly, even if it has the potential to be such a place, I’d rather present my work on my own terms.

So, all future work from me will be on my website, The Lurking Fox, [link].

The website is currently a shambles, however. It’s in need of revising badly, and so it will not be up for some time. I don’t know if I’ll even have it back up by this time next year; it all depends on the college workload and how much time/energy I have to spend on it.

In the meantime, there are some significantly less professional places to find me. I currently have a tumblr and a livejournal. The tumblr is just a collection of images and suchlike that I find on the internet that are of some interest. The livejournal is more in the way of a quasi-cryptic personal log. It’s incredibly emo. But, if/when the website goes back up, I will likely post news of that on those places. The tumblr can be found at [link] The livejournal can be found at [link] Currently the livejournal is very, very public. I will likely be changing the settings soon such that the more emo/embarrassing entries are accessible only to friends. (Professionalism again, you see.)

It’s possible that I could come back to dA some day. Depends on what I need at any given time, really. As it stands, the deviations haven’t been deleted; they’re simply in storage (I need the files archived somewhere off of my computer; I think I’m missing files, and, aside from that, I need the dates of creation/posting in order to organize the Lurking Fox). Potentially, I may re-release the stand-alone or truly “classic” pieces – simply modify the description or some such.

But for now, the silence of this account is official.

Sorry, guys. You’ll be the first to know if anything changes. I’ll try to leave some indication of the Lurking Fox’s resurgence on dA whenever I manage to get the website back together.


Oh! As a final note: all of those webcomics I’ve been promising to make for ages? Well, I’ve figured out the key to actually getting them done: make someone else draw them.

Thus, when I have the time/energy to complete the scripts and can get one of my MassArtists to draw for me, The Eden Concept, Wash Closet, and A Practical Guide to Good Versus Evil (if I decide to keep that as a webcomic) will be produced and published as subsets of the Lurking Fox. The webcomics would, of course, be free.

I plan on dedicating the main portion of the Lurking Fox to my writing (and probably some concept art related thereto since very little is actually complete). Probably there would be only a few examples of actual writing (my aim is always to be published). The majority of it would be brief synopsis of the concepts I’m working with.

Likely, I’ll select some of my better images (drawn, photographic, etc) and create a small section for those works to stand alone. That should really suffice. Ultimately, my intention is to have the website prepared for the day when I manage to get something published (if that should ever happen).

Ultimately, the Lurking Fox is what it has always been – a collection of promises.

Well. I guess there’s nothing wrong with that.


Good luck, all.

- Ref