Tristan Hilliard

13517.8

Not sure why they’re selling my children at Target...

12362.9 Finally got my Christmas card up! Happy holidays everyone! And a very merry Krampus!

There seems to be a common conception among figures of modern literature and poetry that you can only truly be in love three times in your life… well… for me: Two down. One. To. Go. I’ll save the last one like it’s my last credit in a video game where my lives are quickly running down on a particularly hard level.

After it happened, she was there - in my dreams, all the time. Initially, in that realm, she was still my other half. Together we explored my slumbering subconscious together, hand-in-hand; our little fantastical empires - visually represented in my mind through recurrent crumbling castles or rooms that once looked like they held much grandeur. In places like this we would regularly make love… and she was happy. Often I’d wake up and realize that that wasn’t who she was for me anymore; that in pain I’d moved 2,000 miles away from where she still lived. That she wasn’t going to be in the bed next to me when lucid reality jolted through my veins at the speed of unwelcome electric realization. As time went on we grew apart in my sleep. Sometimes she’d be close to me, love me - then tell me she was leaving. It shocked and hurt me every time. I’d wake up distraught that I had to, once again, be forced through that experience. Eventually she wouldn’t even look at, or acknowledge me in the dreams… she slowly became something cold. It’s now been months since she ended our relationship. I’ve been returned to the standard assortment of eclectic dreams granted the average human mind… but sometimes I still see her, catch her out of the corner of my eye, like a shadow… silently sitting at the edge of a room, of my psyche. Just unobtrusively watching, usually with a sad and contemplative expression on her face. The only thing I know to do anymore is look away from her, ignore her. Why did I ever let you into my dreams? Vacant dream-like representations of people have always wandered through… but you were the first to ever feel like you were actually there. And now… I must ask you to leave.

11406.7 If you happen to pick up the latest Game Informer magazine issue, you just might see some original artwork in it by your's truly... and by "might" I mean "you will"... page 29... accompanying an article my brother, Kyle Hilliard, wrote on a Harvard study about video games occurring in dreams entitled "Dreaming of Video Games". Here's a breakdown of all the steps involved, including having to completely resize it halfway through the project... Oh well, as the French say "c'est la FREELANCE ART!" (pretty sure they say that). Whole thing took about twenty-one hours. (click to enlarge... you know the drill).

11397.7 The top picture was taken in early 2006 at a mutual friend's birthday party. Myself on the left, and Ashley on the right. At the time, we were little more than acquaintances and neither of us had much inclination that in a mere three years... we'd be siblings-in-law (Ashley married my brother). So, every now and then we like to bring that picture up and laugh at it. And now, eight years later, I decided to photoshop it to make it ever MORE dramatic. Why it took so long, I don't know...

11382.8 My friend, Mr. Bran Oswalt (who appears in a few pictures), works for Brown Memorials in Florence, SC designing... well, memorials. He was out to do some field work/research and asked if I wanted to tag along to take cemetery pictures... he didn't have to ask twice. Exploring Magnolia Cemetery (I believe... could be wrong about that) in Latta, SC and Piney Grove Baptist Cemetery in Dillon, SC.

11372.5 My friend Joel Moore (who plays guitar for the Charlotte, NC based metal band: Wretched), had the topmost picture taken of him... I found it irresistibly photoshop'able... so photoshop it I did.

11368.4 Oh boy! It's pollen'ing outside! Spring is here! ♪ Do you want to build a pollen-man? ♫

11320.5 A few pictures from Mt. Hope Cemetery in Florence, South Carolina during the February 2014 southern "SNOWPOCALPYSE" (more formally known as Winter Storm Pax).

11284.6 Upgraded my phone. Now I can finally experiment with instagram video!

11277.4 My brother, Kyle Hilliard (who's an associate editor with Game Informer... AKA not only does he love video games, they're his livelihood), named his daughter "Claire Chell" (Chell being the character you play as in the Portal video game series). So, since she's two, we figured it only right to give her a toddler-sized portal gun... though, of course, now there's portals all over the house (you REALLY have to watch where you step, don't want to fall into an infinity loop).

11232.8 I LIKE FALL! So... I took some pictures. Nothing groundbreaking... mostly just therapeutic.

11176.8 I've been rather maniacally creative lately... I blame that on a self-psychosomatically induced love of my favorite season: autumn; and the fact that it is such season (at the time of writing this). Most of my art's visual, but I thought I'd try my hand at music tonight (I used to "compose" digital music all the time, but it's been years). Be gentle, it's been awhile.