clayhartart-blog

[clayhartart-blog]

[clayhartart-blog]

The fact that planned parenthood buildings literally have special rooms for the employees and patients to go to when a mass shooter comes into the building really does shed light on the hypocrisy of the ‘Pro life’ movement.

[clayhartart-blog]

Watch: George Takei sends a message in Spanish about how we can defeat Trump

[clayhartart-blog]

how do ppl have warm ups and warm downs when drawing like i draw one thing and then hibernate for the winter

[clayhartart-blog]

how do ppl have warm ups and warm downs when drawing like i draw one thing and then hibernate for the winter

[clayhartart-blog]

Look everyone!! You made it so happy!!

[clayhartart-blog]

This is me at 21 years old. This is the day I graduated from the Detroit police academy at 4:00pm, went home and took a couple hour nap, woke up at 9:30 that night and reported to my first tour of duty at the 12th Precinct for midnight shift. Look at that smile on my face. I couldn’t have been more excited, more proud. Armed with my dad’s badge that he wore for 25 years on my chest, one of my mom’s sergeant stripe patches in my pocket, my lucky $2.00 bill tucked into my bulletproof vest, a gun I was barely old enough to purchase bullets for on my hip and enough naive courage for a small army, I headed out the door…my mom snapped this photo on my way. 

The next 17 years would bring plenty of shed blood, black eyes, torn ligaments, stab wounds, stitches, funerals, a head injury, permanent and irreparable nerve damage, 5 ruptured discs, some charming PTSD and depression issues and a whole lot of heartache. They brought missed Christmases with my family, my absence from friends’ birthday get-togethers, pricey concert tickets that were forfeited at the last minute because of a late call and many sleepless nights. 

I’ve laid in wet grass on the freeway for three hours watching a team of burglars and orchestrating their apprehension, I’ve dodged gunfire while running down a dark alley in the middle of the night chasing a shooting suspect, I’ve argued with women who were too scared to leave their abusive husbands until they realized they had to or they would end up dead. I’ve peeled a dead, burned baby from the front of my uniform shirt, I’ve felt the pride of putting handcuffs on a serial rapist and I’ve cried on the chest of and kissed the cheek of my dead friend, coworker and academy classmate even though it was covered in his own dried blood and didn’t even look like him from all the bullet holes. I know what a bullet sounds like when it’s whizzing past your ear, a few inches away, I know what the sound of a Mother’s shrilling scream is like when she finds out her son has been killed in the middle of the street and I know what it’s like to have to tell a wife and mother of 3 that her husband was killed in a car accident while on his way home from work. 

Smells, pictures, sounds and sights are burned and engrained into our minds…things we can never forget, no matter how hard we try; things that haunt our sleep at night and our thoughts during the day; things that we volunteered to deal with so that you don’t have to. Things I don’t want my sister, little cousins or YOU to even have to KNOW about. 

I never once went to work thinking, “I’m gonna beat someone tonight.”; “Hmmm…I think I’m gonna kill someone tonight.” I DID, however, go to work every night, knowing that I was going to do the best I could to keep good people safe, even if that meant that I died doing so.

We ALL need to start being more understanding and compassionate toward one another. Violence doesn’t cure violence and hate doesn’t cure hate. I’ve seen and experienced both sides of the spectrum since I left the PD and I get it. I truly do. But this all has to stop. 

Are cops perfect? No. Are there bad cops? Yes. But please…understand that the vast majority of police are good, loving, well intentioned family people. They have husbands and wives and children and parents and pets and cousins and mortgages and electric bills and lawns that need cutting, just like you. They have hearts and consciences. They aren’t robots, they’re not machines and they just want to help keep the wolves away from the sheep. I KNOW there’s people who don’t deserve to wear the badge but they’re SO VERY few and far between. It breaks my heart to see all this hatred and anger flying around. All it’s doing is encouraging more of the same.

  If you’ve read this far, thank you for listening. I’m not gonna sit here and tell you that if you hate or don’t support one side or the other, to unfriend me and never speak to me again…I hope those are the people who come straight TO me. Because I’ll be more than happy to hug you and pray or meditate with you. I’ll be more than happy to listen to your concerns and let you vent and empathize with your feelings. But then I’ll encourage you to help me find a solution to end all this nonsense because if we’re not part of the solution, we’re part of the problem. Love to all of you. ALL OF YOU. We’re all SO much better than this.

–Merri McGregor, Law Enforcement, Harrison Township, MI

[clayhartart-blog]

I drew a thing for a friend

[clayhartart-blog]

pokemon go expectation: dude this is going to be so awesome its like pokemon in real life i wonder if you can find pokemon in your own house or if you have to like go to the arctic to catch an ice type

pokemon go reality: i have been walking around my neighborhood for the past 40+ minutes trying to find this goddamn clefairy. its so hot outside. i am about to die of heat stroke and the clefairy is still nowhere in sight

[clayhartart-blog]

Missing the lush greenery in Vancouver Island…

[clayhartart-blog]

My final art project for class, working in somebody else's style (can you tell it's not what I'm used to? Lol) I used @abigaillarson and Tim Burton as my inspiration. I also haven't worked in watercolor in FOREVER so it made it quite the challenge! I hope you enjoy!

[clayhartart-blog]

Disney’s 2016 new princess: Moana Waialiki

[clayhartart-blog]

"They told me to become anything, so I became a squeaky toy."

“My parrot is a squeaky toy”   [via Facebook]

[clayhartart-blog]

I want you to look at your latest piece of art. okay? got it up?

Now think back a few years. If you were to see that piece of art back then how would you have reacted?

Now think back many years, as many as you want. How would you have reacted then?

you are the artist you wanted to be, right now. 

Stop hating on yourself, and have fun.

[clayhartart-blog]

© (c ) copyright 1990-2011 Rebecca Sinclair

See the original HERE

[clayhartart-blog]

so on one hand we have a Muslim father who is apologizing for the crimes of his son against LGBT people and saying how his son’s actions were motivated by hatred and wants to “apologize for the entire thing.”

And on the other hand we have the white Stanford rapist’s dad who is telling the world to feel bad for his son because he just wanted 20 minutes of action and now he can’t eat steak like he used to. 

….but tell me again you racist pieces of shit about how it’s Islam that’s the anti-feminist, misogynistic religion.

[clayhartart-blog]

I’ve started doing a thing and I really like where it’s going??? I wanted to draw something pride related since, of course, it is Pride month. This is all I have right now, but I will add more tomorrow or maybe later today