Hwhup The Deans List? The Jason Dean here, bringing an end to the Weekend. That’s it. No clever, punchy similes here. Just a flat out end to the weekend. I don’t know what to tell you, folks.

Anyways. Let’s get into it.

Art

Last week in this space, I wrote that I was ‘extremely far behind on photo editing and sorting’ to the point where I felt a 😬 emoji was necessary. In that time, I have only gotten extremelier far behind and need to add a second 😬. Thankfully I do still have images to share, and so share them I shall.

I’ve mentioned before that I did more photography this summer than I ever have before. Yet I went to the beach less times than any summer before (since I’ve been in Marquette, anyways). How could this be?

Because leaves and grass are incredible. Like, check this out:

Or this:

These are images I created in my backyard. A reminder kids- creativity knows no boundaries!

We’ll close with something completely different- a wave photo, which was most certainly not made in my backyard. Not to step on next week’s Waves are Wednesdays but here is a photo that I took this past Wednesday at the Blackrocks. Folks- it’s getting to be that time of year when the Northwinds blow and the leaves change and the temperatures drop- the time of year I call ‘Wave Hunting Season’. It’s the time of year that, as an artist, I come to life. And man oh man, am I ready for it!!!

Economics

I’m still working on my long-form “Why a people-pleasing risk-averse homebody decided to leave stable employment in the non-profit sector to move into art/photography” expose’. I’m finding it hard to translate the words from my head to the page in a manner that doesn’t completely dominate an entire ‘The Deans List’. Surprisingly (😀) I have too much I want to say and I want to share my story without clogging up your Sunday morning. So behind the scenes, I continue to shape those words into a thoughtful, coherent whole.

Meanwhile I will continue to bring updates on where things stand with The Jason Dean™. There is certainly a lot of work to do, but the vision is coming into focus and my energy and enthusiasm are rising to the occasion! I am excited to share that I’ll be working with Moon Vibes Media to bring the thoughts and ideas that are currently bouncing around in my brain into a tangible business structure. Kyle, the owner of Moon Vibes Media, is a great dude whose specialty is creating things where things did not previously exist. I’ve known him for many years and am super pumped to work with him!

Recess

I don’t know if I’ve actually had ‘Recess’ yet during an issue of ‘The Weekender’ but as a reminder- recess is where I will just talk about things I like, or like to do, in my spare time that don’t have anything to do with my art.

For recess today, I’m going to talk about a Magic: The Gathering deck that I built and have been enjoying playing. Note that I am going to talk about it in MTG jargon sans explanation so if you are not a ‘Magic: The Gathering’ enthusiast you can move on to the salutations with no judgment. However, if you are in the Venn Diagram of people that enjoy my art and play MTG…I hope you read on!

So for most of my Magic playing time, I’ve resided comfortably in the Esper parts of the color pie. I enjoy a slower, more controlling style of play and have eschewed decks that rely on lots of creatures.

Then I met Akul. Akul the Unrepentant is a Rakdos commander that can, once per turn, sacrifice three creatures and cheat a creature from hand onto the battlefield. It sounded like an interesting ability, so I decided to build an Akul deck. And I have had an insane amount of fun playing this deck! It’s my favorite deck to play at the moment.

It’s not necessarily an aggressive deck, but it is heavily dependent on creatures- certainly more than most of my decks, so it’s much more reliant on combat and less reliant on interaction than I am used to. I don’t mind though! Akul is a competent combatant on his own, and the ability to cheat super powerful cards into play while also taking advantage of the numerous aristocrat synergies that are available in Rakdos colors has led to frequent dynamic, rewarding play experiences.

Thanks for taking part in this recess (if you did 😄). If you do happen to be in that cross section of The Jason Dean enthusiasts that are also mages, let me know in the comments!

Thank you again for being a member of The Deans List. I appreciate your support and encouragement. If you feel so inclined to support and encourage by buying a cup of coffee at the button below…I’m not going to turn you down 😀 And hey, if you don’t or can’t, that’s okay too! Even sharing this newsletter or my images on your social media is a great way to support what I do.

See you around,

Jason