So this post is more of a ramble please enjoy the art and the photos. I have some more intense research based essays in the works they just take longer. I also needed a space to just share what I’m drawing and complain/lament about art and other stuff. I have posted straight art on here before—see this comic that I shared in early June.
I finished this drawing of my cat Winnie in my kitchen this morning. It took me months to complete. I am embarrassed at how slow I have become at finishing art. Especially a piece that’s only 5 by 6 inches in dimension.
I know some people are squinting their faces at the screen and asking how timelines for personal projects could have someone feeling so down and frustrated with themselves. The truth is I used to measure my success by the number of art pieces and deadlines I could juggle at once. And now that I am disabled (still getting used to the concept of emotions changing my brain chemistry so much they become disabling) everything I want and need to do with my artistic life has become more of a challenge.
Meeting and interacting with people in general is challenging. However I never thought I would stop going to art events because I felt unsafe or frightened by the thoughts and ideas shared by my peers under the banner of social justice. I have in some ways become a recluse. Immersing myself in podcasts and philosophy books as a replacement for friends.
Do not pity me please. It’s just hard to explain to others why you are up until 7 in the morning pushing your way through a project because you just learned that Hersh Goldberg-Polin, whose mother Rachel you have been watching for the last 10 months plead with the world to care about her kidnapped son (most recently at the DNC), was shot dead two days ago at point blank range in an underground tunnel with five other hostages in Rafah. All eyes on Rafah right—the place that Biden pleaded with the IDF not to go in to, the place where they have found the most hostages so far—dead and alive.
We are told caring about these captured people somehow negates our concern for the loss of life of Palestinian women and children as if one begets the other instead of us all being connected by our collective pain and humanity. That’s the cruelest most evil take—never let anyone tell you that you cannot mourn both sides.
Getting back to irrational deadlines and unrealized art productivity expectations; this behavior of mine is obviously not healthy, for instance, I once made an entirely analog comic in two months for a grant and changed the shape of my right-hand in the process. But art is such a precarious profession that having multiple projects at once was my personal signifier that I was doing ok financially which meant that I had some creative control over my life.
I stopped making art consistently a year and a half ago. My now husband had a seizure which led to the discovery of a rare tumor, then surgery, followed by radiation, and my life hasn’t been the same since. October 7th and the aftermath were just the cherry on top of one of the most traumatic years of my life so far. I have been burnt out for some time now. And because of this, I haven’t documented living in Philly over the past two summers as much as I would have liked.
Not making art even if the circumstances were excusable has been terrible for my mental health. Which is a funny damned if you do and damned if you don’t situation. I punish myself when I’m productive and I punish myself when I’m not. It’s strange to beat yourself up for an activity that causes both pain and pleasure. Walking for me is another one of those adjacent pursuits which has become increasingly stressful over the last three years.
Walking has been my way of relieving stress and anxiety for decades. Unfortunately in Seattle I came across lots of scenarios while walking around the city that have caused trauma responses later on (that machete attack I wrote about in this essay-being one of them).
Which was really disappointing as I took some amazing photographs of Seattle like these:
Having my walks ruined because of PTSD is a vicious cycle, and leads to me pacing back and forth inside my house like an imprisoned big cat at the zoo. So with that in mind, I'm drawing a lot more scenes from inside my home (see above) instead of using reference photos from walks like I used to do.
But I still walk to work. Everyday there and back again. So on occasion I get some good photos on the way:
I’m a walker and a compulsive picture taker by nature. This is still my default. The most annoying kind of companion. Which is why I like to take my walks solo. No talking, just inner monologue with a hyper-observance of the shapes of leaves, and the brick patterns of buildings.
I never thought of the photos I take as art, it is for me, a hobby. But a hobby that informs my “creative practice” a phrase that makes me cringe because I think it sounds “first-year-art-school” pretentious. But regardless of how I feel about froufrou language, taking pictures is usually where I get many of my ideas for drawings from. One hobby feeds to the other job.
I’m trying to get that spark back. And hopefully draw more of the city (not just the inside of my apartment) but that’s been fun too. I am taking another walk in an hour. Please wish me luck. Hopefully I get some good pictures.
