Hallelujah Anyways.

Well- wow.
Um...hi.

I've been putting off writing anything on here for a variety of reasons. Mostly I keep psyching myself out and assuming I need to really have something substantial to offer before I can start typing. But that kind of logic lands you right here, with no posts in over two months.

So here I am and I hardly know where to start. It's not every day that your life kind of comes crashing down around you. I don't mean to be melodramatic, but I know I have a tendency to be anyways- and since this is my blog, I hope you'll indulge me.
But really so much has changed in such a short time, and so much is still changing.

There's been a tremendous amount of personal upheaval, which I'll not go into here, but there's also been the very public disintegration of my workplace. The gist is neatly summed up in the opening sentence of this Boston Globe article.

The upshot is: I'm out of a dayjob.

We were working on something really and truly very beautiful at 38 Studios. And for all the politics and financial controversy surrounding this debacle- all I really care about is that a dream is dying. Something we all invested in, and really threw our hearts into. Things I hoped would eventually be experienced by the public at large may now never see the light of day, and a group of friends that I've worked with for the last 3 years is dispersing to the four corners of the globe.
I don't know how better to eulogize the project or the team than to let the footage roll:



And that's only a tiny, hastily assembled and outdated fraction of what we were working on.
Maybe I'll eat these words and all this really won't spell the end for Project Copernicus. I'd say it still has a fighting chance of living on in some form. But it seems the practical and true thing to say that my time working on it has come to a close. It was just a little over a year ago that I wished Providence a "hello again" from this same blog. Well, it looks like, for the time being at least, I'll be saying a "goodbye again" instead.
Reading that old post, the past year has been many of the things I had hoped for, and some things I never could have expected in my wildest dreams. It has been an incredible year- one of the happiest of my life. One of the hardest of my life.
And, like all such years and every new day- it is coming to a close.
All the friends I have known and loved from school are graduating, all my friends from work are moving on, and even I am headed back to my parents for the foreseeable future. Washing out in one big tide.

It's kind of bittersweet that this is all taking place at exactly the same time so many are graduating and contemplating the same big questions we all (the remnants of 38) are. There's a sense of solidarity in that- my heart goes out to anyone feeling a little lost at sea right now. I'm right there with you.

The confluence of recent events has left me with the lyric from Closing Time running laps around my head: "every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end". Trite, but true. But I am encouraged by the lyrics of another song, with a very particular history- "it is well with my soul"

The Lord gives and he takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.

But there is hope in every such ending. A new year begins, a new day dawns, and a new season brings new promise to the earth. Tally Hall said "there's a storm for every spring", Tolkien called it eucatastrophe, and John 12:24 puts it this way: "unless a grain of wheat falls to the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit."

It can be so difficult to find the silver lining sometimes, but there is so many who witness to the fact that it's there- in much harder circumstances than these. So there it is. This is an opportunity for a fresh start. A new dream.

In the short term, I have to look towards salvaging what my foolish financial irresponsibility has landed me in. In the longer term- I'm thinking about a few new things. And, very tentatively, I'm starting to get really excited.

To that end, I'm stepping my game up again. It's time to dust off the old resume, rearrange my portfolio, and get back online. Re-up my digital presence. I have some links to show you- please throw all your love and hitcounts their way:

My shiny new portfolio and resume are here:
nicholaskole.daportfolio.com/
(more work available to show on request)

I've been posting my commission status on my deviantart page, here:

nicholaskole.deviantart.com

My fancy pants LinkedIn Account is here:
linkedin.com/in/nicholaskole

My shiny new Twitter account is here. Yes, I have one of those now. :p
twitter.com/fromhappyrock
(I left facebook and had status withdrawal)

And I have some prints to move, so my new online BigCartel shop for those is here:
nicholaskole.bigcartel.com/
(seriously, buy some prints! I gotta get rid of these :p)

I would truly appreciate any and all support you can give. Right now, I am in the market for freelance work- and I'm hearing out all projects. If you have work, or have heard of work that might be up my alley- let me know! nkole@g.risd.edu is the best place to reach me.
I have some exciting things brewing, and some ideas. Watch this space- it's going to get real around here :)

May God bless and hold you, wherever you are.

Love,

-n