Now

Now_2026-02-11-1908
What I’m up to right now

  • Soliciting Help: Photosphere Camera App Fix/ Alternative
  • License & Buy My Art
  • Jobs and Clients
  • Working Values
  • Current Engagements
  • Active Projects
  • Current Reading & Listening
  • Art Projects in Waiting
  • Social Projects in Waiting
  • Personal Projects in Waiting
  • Recommended Media

Soliciting Help: Photosphere Camera App Fix/ Alternative

As of my last phone upgrade, the Google Camera app has gutted the photosphere feature I rely on for photography and reference capture of equirectangular panoramas / photospheres. To regain functionality I can sideload an .apk Gcam fork of unknown quality and security (eeeek) or I can lug around an extra, end-of-service phone, just in case, ugh. A proper Fork project or alternative equirectangular camera app suggestion would be fantastic.

License & Buy My Art

Talk to me about licensing for media and printed merchandise. I have original works ready for sale. I will have a series of surface design tiling patterns for wallpaper and fabric ready to go soon.

Jobs and Clients

I’m based in Springfield, Missouri. I am open for work solicitations, commissions, and contracts. I am applying for gigs, projects, odd jobs, and even the right creative W2 job. Studios, Art Departments, Propaganda, Documentation, Print Shops, Vehicle Wraps, Custom fabrication, you name it.

Working Values

  • Interoperability
  • Privacy
  • Documentation
  • Beauty
  • Utility
  • Compassion

Using free, open-source tools and public, non-proprietary standards means:

  1. Always having working access to one’s own files down the road.
  2. Freedom replicating and sharing your workflow with collaborators.
  3. Access to developers
  4. Keeping your unpublished content and communications from being legally ingested by Adobe, Microsoft, and whomever they sell training data and surveillance.
  5. Encryption as well as audited, maintained code not only safeguard people and their work, but it also ensures the integrity of your personal development. https://www.salon.com/2016/07/24/the_gift_of_privacy_how_edward_snowden_changed_the_way_i_parent/

I like using Markdown notation, making documentation readable, searchable, and portable. I’m into taking personal notes as well as writing tutorials and sharing them online. https://xkcd.com/979/

I’m into artful environments, good food, well designed tools, repairability, stewardship, compassion, forward planning, and the oceans not boiling off of the planet in four hundred years at current consumption rates with runaway warming feedback loops. I’m not into cruelty, thoughtlessness, greed, pollution, or taking advantage of people. I take seriously my moral and legal obligations and liabilities under the Genocide Convention Implementation Act of 1987.

Current Engagements

Birdy and the Beads – DIY Bead Bar Popup Vendor Booth & Doll Imports

I’m working with Birdy Harper of (Birdy and the Beads)[https://brettleeper.com/birdy-and-the-beads/] to present at various events and festivals a booth for Do-It-Yourself and custom bead creations. Check out our (Spring Calendar)[https://brettleeper.com/birdy-and-the-beads-popup-schedule-spring-2026/], we have:

  • A massive assortment of beads of every shape, color and character.
  • Beadable pens, keychains, crafting tools, and accessories.
  • Lafufu dolls and outfits, and more.

Mosaica Rose Studio

I do on again off again studio assistant work and mosaic install work with Christine Schilling of Mosaica Rose Studio on Historic C-Street, Springfield, MO. There’s upcoming tile cutting, dates are in the air.

Active Projects

Surface Design & Inkscape Explorations

I’m progressing towards completing the first of many surface design tiling patterns, an art-nouveau-ish watermelon vine design based on my own trellis garden, with which I’ll make a collection of colorways and variants. I’m learning quite a bit more of how Inkscape’s various Live Path Effects and external plugins work and don’t work together.

I’m nearly done with the botanical path elements but certain implementation details are contingent upon object proportions and in particular the scale of small details accounting for final print sizes and print resolution. I printed and stitched together my first wallpaper scale mockup the other day.

Spoonflower does print-to-order fabric, wallpaper, and homegoods, as well as marketplace listings, alongside Etsy. I don’t quite have a lead yet for dye-saturated, two-sided prints for handkerchiefs et al, at least not in small-batches. T-shirt printing has too many options. I also made contact with several local bag makers and machine embroiders with whom I might collaborate.

Panorama Digital Painting in Blender for Web and Animation

Scalable-but-painterly, and hopefully faster graphics and animation in 360° equirectangular panoramas is the goal. Retooling my work to Blender’s Grease Pencil system is ongoing but it generally solves resolution, scale, and animation problems vs Blender’s raster-based Texture Paint system which has awkward layer support via nodes and doesn’t support sequential frames a la Photoshop and Krita. I’m still lacking technique for gradients and for non-raster-brush textured edges before spending time on larger demos and treatments. Sophie Jantak’s many painting tutorials will be helpful.

My Blender working reference document needs updated to my recent notes. The format is sprawling compared to a topical tutorial.

As far as displaying the work, the freemium WPVR WordPress plugin does some basics but will be wanting a proper interactive system.

Concatenating My File System

It used to all fit on one drive, then not so much. I’m getting it all back together again, sorting duplicates, checking for errors. Then, Network Attached Storage / NextCloud Wide Grin.

Current Reading & Listening

Art Projects in Waiting

Life Drawing Sessions

Hit me up for in-person life drawing group sessions in Springfield. I’m not opposed to modeling if required. As for digital group sessions I’m planning to host some through the Animator Guild’s Discord server (animators hit me up for an invite code) at such a time as I finish curating some image pose sets.

Children’s Public Health Propaganda

I really enjoyed working on the Freddy Fox public service announcement cartoons for Freeman and I’m keen to get back to practical and utopian messaging. I’ve been reflecting on the fact that the Freddy seres didn’t have a mask/respirator hygeine episode, just hand-washing hygeine. If Freeman or a competitor would care to commission one, that would be FANTASTIC. Call me!

Big Brutus

Getting museum grounds photo panoramas onto my website is low hanging fruit. This should be followed by working on an extended visioning pitch for site electrification / vehicle charging, as well as adding an Electrification of SouthEast Kansas history module to the excellent mining history and miner’s union content.

Photogrammetry

My photo archive includes an amount of object capture feedstock for 3D software photogrammetry experiments to convert them to 3D models and texture maps. It’s been a hot minute since I spent time with Meshroom, it has a particular node procedure that needs a deep investigation to churn out clean geometry and texture, which will extend to a Blender pipeline.

Social Projects in Waiting

Trail Hiking, Kayaking, Street Bicycling, & Picnics!

Hit me up!

Archery Practice

Waiting on cash flow to budget for facility fees at the Springfield-Greene County Park Board Archery Complex so I can commit calendar time to the friends who also need to be practicing. While less social, I do miss having the family farm’s spacious hay barn to practice in.

Mask Bloc – Clean Air – Direct Aid

I’d like to participate in a direct aid effort like a mask bloc or clean air events group for respirator mask and air filter distribution, fit-testing, public health resources, as well as clean air safe/accessible arts and culture event organizing and planning.

I have a portable carbon dioxide meter I can show up with for anybody who really needs conditions checked, and I’m happy to share information. Respirators, SARS-Cov-2 pathology, airborne transmission), and actionable air filtration are areas of great interest in which I’ve read a good deal.

Before I feel comfortable scaling workshops pushing particular PPE on people I’m waiting on surplus cash for fit-testing equipment and learning how it works. Buying discounted wholesale respirator boxes is an expense but cheaper than retail. Aspirationally, a PlusLife molecular testing unit would also be a dandy community resource.

In promoting workshops and distributing direct-aid supplies I may look at Southwest Missouri Solidarity Network, the local PSL chapter, and the Springfield sub-reddit.

Clean Air Club of Chicago and Mask Bloc Los Angeles are particularly inspirational in their scale. The latter has been essential during the last round of LA fires as these eugenics-infested federal, state, city, and county governments arrested people whose homes had just burned down for camping, literally planned to leave incarcerated children locked up to die inside active wildfire zones, and generally withheld lifesaving capacity.

Personal Projects in Waiting

The Garden

Probably March or later I’ll start seeds indoors. I should pick a shorter season heirloom watermelon this year, and also stick to direct seeding any cucurbits. Maybe these Golden Midget Watermelons? https://heritageharvestseed.com/products/golden-midget-watermelon-seeds-1959

Last year I finally grew my own Jadu’i watermelons, and I have a ton of seeds to share if you would like any. I’ll probably make a donation to the Springffield Greene County Library’s heirloom seed lending library. The variety tasted lovely and did well over the dry summer, but many were still ripening into frost. They sprouted incredibly vigorously but suffered transplant shock and stalled for a while. Direct seed for sure.

My clone of my Great-Grandmother’s amazing-smelling heirloom rose has established at my current address and I can probably start layering more again for family who have asked for starts.

I can get a head start making twine macrame trellises on the fence this year rather than getting them up mid-season. Restocking jute baling twine is required, but what I really want is hemp baling twine.

Learning to Replace My Bicycle Chain

Waiting on surplus cash for chain tool and replacement chain.

Recommended Media

Art

  • Rusalka by Aleksandr Petrov, Youtube
  • Animator Dedouze, Youtube, 1, 2, and 3
  • Orlando (1992), directed by Sally Potter

Articles & Papers

  • Growing Garlic from True Seed by Ted Jordan Meredith and Avram Drucker, Garlicana
  • The 60-Year-Old Scientific Screwup That Helped Covid Kill by Megan Molteni May 13 2021, Wired (paywalled), Archive.ph (accessible)
  • COVID-19: A NEW DISEASE PARADIGM, Editorial, John Snow Project
  • Can we clean Covid from the air around us?, Nina Notman26 September 2022, Chemistry World
  • Western media can be held legally accountable for its role in the Gaza genocide, by Craig Mokhiber August 24 2024, Mondoweiss

Podcast Episodes

  • UNAPOLOGETIC: Episode 20 – 100-year history of US meddling, coups and wars in the Middle East | Roy Casagranda, Youtube, audio
  • Pod Damn America: The Airborne Toxic Event w/ Julia Doubleday, audio
    “Writer and former Bernie staffer Julia Doubleday joins Jake to talk about how the Democrats all gave each other COVID at the DNC.”
    Accessible, reasonably short primer on science of SARS-CoV-2 / Covid viral transmission and practical mitigation thereof, as well as a history of public failures and political malfeasance to act and communicate accordingly.
  • Palestine Deep Dive: Exposed: How Western Media Can Be Prosecuted for Its Role In Gaza Genocide | Craig Mokhiber, Youtube, audio

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