pencilton
@moonleg.bsky.social
Teacher, intermittent artist, sporadic writer.
“art’s most ardent and morose admirer”
matthewpshelton.com
“art’s most ardent and morose admirer”
matthewpshelton.com
I wrote it to feel less isolated and crazy, and if it helps you feel that way, please let me know, and please pass it on.
January 24, 2026 at 5:06 PM
I wrote it to feel less isolated and crazy, and if it helps you feel that way, please let me know, and please pass it on.
This essay emerged out of 3 yrs of journaling about teaching as i transitioned from 10 yrs of teaching studio art in higher ed to teaching at a public middle school, & I wrote it over the last five months.
January 24, 2026 at 5:06 PM
This essay emerged out of 3 yrs of journaling about teaching as i transitioned from 10 yrs of teaching studio art in higher ed to teaching at a public middle school, & I wrote it over the last five months.
With Barf doing the album art—classic
October 23, 2025 at 12:01 PM
With Barf doing the album art—classic
revision:
in morning, nighttime—
thank goodness—moon pics
just can’t quit failing
in morning, nighttime—
thank goodness—moon pics
just can’t quit failing
October 9, 2025 at 1:14 PM
revision:
in morning, nighttime—
thank goodness—moon pics
just can’t quit failing
in morning, nighttime—
thank goodness—moon pics
just can’t quit failing
I always felt their production and affect was out of tune with their professed politics. Like they were just packaging some different words in the same gloss and vitriol and hyperbole as any other commercial news enterprise
January 9, 2025 at 12:43 PM
I always felt their production and affect was out of tune with their professed politics. Like they were just packaging some different words in the same gloss and vitriol and hyperbole as any other commercial news enterprise
The alienation of growing up in that context doesn’t resolve. drawing/learning to draw is a blessing. writing/conveying is a gift. yet we can’t afford timespace to affirm & validate & share our abundance. no way all this spirit/speaking only belongs to those w undemanded time or passive income.
January 9, 2025 at 4:27 AM
The alienation of growing up in that context doesn’t resolve. drawing/learning to draw is a blessing. writing/conveying is a gift. yet we can’t afford timespace to affirm & validate & share our abundance. no way all this spirit/speaking only belongs to those w undemanded time or passive income.
forfeited to zuck because that’s the price of connection?
what to do with old stories that turn inside us from water to vinegar to wine and back again? i grew up in what i consider to be a very religious and progressive home in the rural South, and it increasingly feels like an impossible space.
what to do with old stories that turn inside us from water to vinegar to wine and back again? i grew up in what i consider to be a very religious and progressive home in the rural South, and it increasingly feels like an impossible space.
January 9, 2025 at 4:27 AM
forfeited to zuck because that’s the price of connection?
what to do with old stories that turn inside us from water to vinegar to wine and back again? i grew up in what i consider to be a very religious and progressive home in the rural South, and it increasingly feels like an impossible space.
what to do with old stories that turn inside us from water to vinegar to wine and back again? i grew up in what i consider to be a very religious and progressive home in the rural South, and it increasingly feels like an impossible space.
what to do with these “skills”/capacities/functionality with images and words, this ability to draw and write, that apparently is even less necessary now than it was ten years ago? post it?
to be mined by corporate language learning models so they can render consciousness even more vestigial?
to be mined by corporate language learning models so they can render consciousness even more vestigial?
January 9, 2025 at 4:27 AM
what to do with these “skills”/capacities/functionality with images and words, this ability to draw and write, that apparently is even less necessary now than it was ten years ago? post it?
to be mined by corporate language learning models so they can render consciousness even more vestigial?
to be mined by corporate language learning models so they can render consciousness even more vestigial?
my mind/the world? feels like a fractured screen that’s too splintered to touch and too precious to replace. i feel pinned between anger and sadness, but most of all by rumination on all this, & a desire for it to be somehow different.
January 9, 2025 at 4:27 AM
my mind/the world? feels like a fractured screen that’s too splintered to touch and too precious to replace. i feel pinned between anger and sadness, but most of all by rumination on all this, & a desire for it to be somehow different.
Christ’s ecstatic expression as he guides/forces Thomas’s forefinger into his open wound… Thomas’s gaze seeming slightly off, stunned, maybe blinded…feeling only, since seeing is not enough, apparently.
to state the obvious, i’m depressed. about the state of things.
to state the obvious, i’m depressed. about the state of things.
January 9, 2025 at 4:27 AM
Christ’s ecstatic expression as he guides/forces Thomas’s forefinger into his open wound… Thomas’s gaze seeming slightly off, stunned, maybe blinded…feeling only, since seeing is not enough, apparently.
to state the obvious, i’m depressed. about the state of things.
to state the obvious, i’m depressed. about the state of things.
…Caravaggio’s own lurid mythology, and our own present inflammation of glory-fied misogyny and sexual violence, and this week’s victory lap for fascists…the static electrical storm of their furrowed brows and heavily starched tunics… the Trinity of open ears…
January 9, 2025 at 4:27 AM
…Caravaggio’s own lurid mythology, and our own present inflammation of glory-fied misogyny and sexual violence, and this week’s victory lap for fascists…the static electrical storm of their furrowed brows and heavily starched tunics… the Trinity of open ears…
…identifying with that doubt, that sense of cynicism, through this morbidly sexual, sexually morbid, homo/erotic image within the context of the Catholic Church, the Renaissance…
January 9, 2025 at 4:27 AM
…identifying with that doubt, that sense of cynicism, through this morbidly sexual, sexually morbid, homo/erotic image within the context of the Catholic Church, the Renaissance…