Welcome to the new website. My name is Karl. I am the owner and creator of the website.
I built this site because I have always wanted to own an online shop that sold products with my art designs on them. I also built this site because I turned 56 this year – it’s a retirement project for me. Not that I am retired or anything, but I do want to retire from the trade that I have been working in for the last 22 years.
There was a time when I couldn’t wait to get out the door and go to work at my career in HVAC/R. Now, 22 years on, I’m burnt out by it, I don’t have any desire to work on furnaces or air conditioners or commercial refrigeration any more.
I need something that I can get more satisfaction from, something where the reward is more than money. When I create an image, graphic, or design that is pleasing to my eye then I get that reward and satisfaction from creating it regardless of how the rest of the world feels about it. If someone else on this mortal coil enjoys it too then that is a bonus, but to be honest that isn’t my ultimate goal.
The goal is to be able to express myself via the images and graphics that I design, and to share that with others.
The goal is to see if what impresses me on a visual level affects other people as well. It doesn’t necessarily need to affect people in a positive manner – you might dislike what I have designed, or feel completely neutral about my art. I’m OK with that, even a negative reaction has value – at the very least someone will know what they don’t like.
One of the things that I try to capture in the images that I create is the everyday monotony of working life. This image was an attempt to show what some people never see, an old dirty transport truck getting its routine maintenance from a tired female mechanic. She has a mortgage payment due in a week and has to cook dinner for her 9 year old son tonight after work because her husband is on his night shift with the railway. No fancy show truck with gleaming chrome and no perfect hairdo here, just the real world of trying to survive in the world.
These are the images that impress me, what I consider to be the real world. In this day and age of internet connectivity and social media the world has developed an unrealistic view of itself. At least that’s my opinion.
Behind all the curated and edited and manipulated photos of glitz and glamour lies the real world of people doing real work – work that is the backbone of the economy and work that provides you and me with a high standard of living.
That is what I am trying to capture in the art that I create. I hope you like it.