Different than my usual

Very different than my usual. Let me explain. We were told to paint a landscape of our emotions. One -- I fucking hate landscapes, so cue anger. Two -- my main emotion lately has been "I hate existence so Fuck off", so cue rage. So which of my canvases do I pick up? One of my recycles, painted a calming blue. I need to chill the fuck out, yo.

Pink rain- the bright overwhelm of anxiety.

White snow - constant suffocating depression.

Red lightning - powerful snaps of anger.

Purple stormclouds - chronic simmering rage.

Black - numb solid front, trying not to soak in the emotions pouring down.

Blue - the calm self I try to show at all times despite the chaos within.

This is all a bit grim. I know I have positives. Better paint in some positives. 

Green bushes - the positives in my life.

I start to smile. Dammit folks, I started to smile! Because as I painted these dinky little bushes, I was thinking about Caleb. Thinking about my friends. Thinking about my family. Thinking about my dog. And it made me SMILE. So I'm proud of this hideous piece.

♥️♥️♥️

Finished Project 8/14/21

The final layer is done! I have completed my first major piece that had a deadline attached to it! Here are my more organized thoughts around it.

1) Red, being my power color, is the power of community covering the darkness of loneliness. 

2) All the splatters show how we can all be very different and yet still be a community. 

3) The empty center shows the self surrounded by community.

All put together, this is my piece on community. I hope it makes sense to people. I had fun with it, even through my frustrations. There were a few stages where I thought it wasn't going to come together, but, like a community does, it did.

Current Project

Due on the 19th.

 

Topic?

.

.

.

Community.

Yeah. Let me share with you some of my thought processes:

Layer one: plain white, using palette knife, going on chunky. "I want texture, and this is the best way to get it. Maybe I'll see something in the texture as I go, and that will give me a starting point." (This didn't happen.)

Layer two: "I don't know what to do, so I'm just gonna put some black on a palette knife and do a blob and see if it looks like anything. *Does it and is surprised when it looks like a blob* oh dear. It looks like a blob. What do I think of when I think of community? LGBT community. Art community. Let's do the colors of the rainbow in the shape of a paint palette! *Does this. Hates it.* I'm just gonna cover it in black."

Layer three: "I don't feel like I'm really part of the LGBT community because I'm bi, so black is rather appropriate to cover this up. I often feel judged by both the LGBT and straight communities, so it's like I don't fit anywhere. So much for community..."

Layer three: *staring at my piece so far, hating it, hyperfocusing on the red showing through the black* Red is my power color. Maybe I can do red then cover that up with black and have just it show through like I did here? *Starts painting all in red* hmmm... I'm liking this just plain red! There is power in community? Community covers the darkness of loneliness? I dunno. Not done. Not perfect. Won't be perfect. But I like it better now than I did."

Speaks a lot louder, for sure.

Some of My Recent Work

I worked on this one over the course of the day. You can see my mood shifts through the brush strokes.

This one was worked on over several weeks. I remember being pretty depersonalized and dissociated through the painting of this one. It's a favorite for me. 

This piece illustrates what mental illness feels like, especially when having a dissociative disorder. It's like there's all this brightness that is life, happiness, excitement, all waiting for you to grasp it with both hands. What people don't realize is that it feels like there's this barrier between you and experiencing all there is to experience. There's a dark fog between you and everything. Every interaction is muted, every conversation being had by people not you even as your mouth is moving, every movement slow and stiff as if being poorly rehearsed. And then there's you, standing out like a sore thumb in how different you are. You are self conscious and hyper aware of every way in which you fall short.

This is mental illness for me. Feel free to share your own experience in the comments section.

This last piece was actually a cover-up of a piece I really disliked. As I was painting, I recall thinking it was a little like a lizard eye looking out over a desert. What do you see?

Ugh

A piece I've been screwing up over and over and over. Seeing just how fucky I can get it before turning it in next week. Learning to accept my work despite horrendous flaws is harrrrrrrd *stomps foot* *sighs* okay. Hitting "post" now. . .

life

I haven't been keeping up my blog. Sometimes life just gets in the way. But I'm realizing that art and music and yes, a silly little blog, ARE LIFE. Listening to my son play piano IS LIFE. Painting while listening to reggae after a bad night with flashbacks and nightmares IS LIFE. Keeping up the things that bring you joy IS LIFE. This is a lesson I needed as I spent half my day crying over what sometimes feels like a failed life. But, as long as I am still breathing, still trying, still creating, I have not failed. I am living. And that, my friends, IS LIFE.