may showers
11 may 2024
what a crazy weather week its been... it rained almost every single day this week which made it pretty difficult to do any mowing. but honestly it's so good to see things so full of life, last year was soooo dry. hopefully things stay this way and we don't have another drought this year. though, it wasn't fun coming home from work most days with wet boots/feet =P other than that it's been business as usual around here, just work now - no school to worry about. i'm trying to plan some more trips to go out with my camera, there's a certain spot that i want to visit for the first time but i'm waiting for the right weather and to have some time off before i do =] maybe i can convince slater to come with me, as much as i enjoy hiking alone it's always fun to have someone else with you.
i was doing really well getting back into going to the gym and establishing a workout routine, but i fell out of it the last week or so. this week it was impossible for me to go just because work was so physically demanding, but now that things have settled back down again i'm going to try to get back into it once again. it's hard because the gym here at my complex is pretty small, so i try to go at night when there's no one else around. only problem is it seems that other people have the same idea, so rolling up to the gym at 10 PM has mixed results. sometimes its empty, sometimes there's a lot of people there. i guess i could always try to get a gym membership somewhere, but i really don't see the need to when the gym here has everything i need and it would just be an extra expense at the end of the day. a few years ago i used to love going to the gym, i'd go every single day but now my body is so brittle... trying to take it easy and establish a good foundation again before i jump into anything else.
i've also been trying to get back into drawing again, i've been having some joint problems in my hands/wrists this week so i think this weekend i'll mainly focus on writing for my webcomic so i can physically recover without hurting myself or anything =P i'm only 25 but i feel so ancient whenever i talk about all my health stuff. speaking of, i have yet another exam for my hip this upcoming week- fingers crossed that all goes well. i never heard back from the hospital that i got referred to do another MRI, so i'm going to have to go allllll the way back to my original orthopedics doctor and ask him if i should do an MRI with contrast at the VA or if i should just go to another sports medicine clinic to see if they'll do the arthroscopy. personally, if i had the choice between an MRI with contrast vs an arthroscopy, i'd take the MRI! sure getting the contrast injected would be a little nervewracking but it would be the same as when i got those injections so i'd know at least a little of what to expect... vs getting a whole camera shoved into my hip joint
but that'll be a later problem. it's such a pain trying to get a hold of healthcare providers, it feels like one big game of phone tag. i was upset because i missed the call to schedule the exam for my hip and wasn't able to call back because i was at work, but then i checked my e-mail and they had scheduled it for me anyway which was such a lifesaver. wow okay, enough medical talk i feel like this is so boring lol
well crossing my fingers that something i'm waiting to hear back on goes through, i will talk about it further in depth once again =] but i think the next year or two has a lot of exciting stuff in store. i'm really looking forward to this summer too, i plan on trying to create more traditional art i think! i was drawing my mom's mother's day card (yearly tradition lol) and all i could think about how this was the first time i was drawing something that wasn't for school in months... let alone drawing something traditional that wasn't for school! it felt really good. excited to do more of that, and to do some painting too maybe... we'll see! it's hard not having as much room anymore and i'm a messy artist, all my tools and stuff just kind of explode everywhere when i'm working on something.
anyways, that's really all i have for you guys right now. i'll write again soon, hope you're having an amazing spring =]
a chance to breathe.. thoughts on art
04 may 2024
first off- HI!!!!! it really feels like it's been a million years since i've been able to sit down and really write an entry here with an entirely 10000% focused mind. now that finals have wrapped up and i've got a little time off from work before we start back in full swing for mow season, i can finally focus on this. what's new? not a lot has been going on here, just focused on school + work... i had my last 'final' today, it was really just a final class meeting to reflect on some stuff. it sucks that it was on a saturday, but thankfully it wasn't too early this morning. i was sooo tired because i didn't sleep well last night and i stopped to get coffee, but as i drove off i realized the barista had basically given me a cup of milk... like they had forgotten to add the coffee or something? idk it was really strange lmao so needless to say i was fighting for my life in that class.
this week i also had two whole days off to spend with slater! its really rare when our schedules line up like that, so we took some time to do some things together. the first day we kind of just hung out, went to the mall and poked around at a couple places before getting some takeout and coming back home. then the next day i had to run to my painting final, but afterwards we hopped in my car and drove out to a trail that i visited a year before last. i'd been waiting to have a reliable car before i could go back there, and also wanted to wait for the right time of year/right type of day for us to go... and it was perfect =] we swam, i got to take some photos but not nearly as many as i wanted to... too scared to carry my camera on the slippery rocks!!
here's one of the pictures i took. it was such a beautiful day and the water was so cold!
anyways, i took a lot more than just that one photo but i need to sit down and edit everything... i've been too lazy to today,and the rest of this week was just so all over the place. i was really looking forward to this week because i've been able to take most of it off, save for having to come in to work a few times. lately it's been really easy for me to see my time off stretching before me and think 'yes, this is it! i'll finally be able to sit down and create like i've been so badly wanting to!' but then the weekend comes, or break comes, or wahtever type of time off i have comes around... and by the time it's over i'm empty handed. i'm not really sure what's going on with me this year- it's like it's all dried up for real this time.
a few days ago i was walking to my apartment from my car with slater and i was carrying my portfolio. my neighbor greeted me from his porch and asked me if i was an artist. i told him i kind of was (not in a way to dunk on myself- ill get to this later) and he said he'd love to see my stuff sometime. as i walked up the stairs to my unit, i thought about the portfolio in my hand and all i could think about was if i opened this up to show someone my art- what would they see? what would i pull out of this portfolio to show someone? what is it that i really make? as a second year undergrad art student, yeah- my physical portfolio is kind of shitty right now. it consists mostly of attempts at photorealism (not by choice) and a huge stack of gestures from figure drawing sessions. there's maybe one piece that i would pull out of there to show someone- and even then, it's not even a piece that i feel like reflects myself or my work in the slightest.
the most frustrating part about taking studio art classes is critiques... and not because i don't like hearing critique- art is the one place in my life where i really crave the hard-hitting truth no matter how uncomfortable it is, i really like learning what i'm doing wrong or what i could improve on... spaces that i can grow. i'm not a competitive person by any means, but art is where i really strive to push myself as hard as i can. instead, critique is difficult for me because i hate talking about my work... the pieces that i carefully cultivate to be 'tasteful' and 'appropriate' for an art class setting are so difficult for me to connect with because they don't reflect my vision artistically. but if someone were to see something of mine that did and ask me about it, i think the shame and the embarassment of having to be genuine would just kill me.
i think restraining myself has stifled my art and my creative process. it's been so incredibly hard to bring myself to create anything this year and to re-engage with my ideas... not to sayt that it hasn't happened- towards the end of break i was really finding myself getting back into things and getting genuinely inspired again. then work and school started up again. i couldn't really figure out waht was wrong, i used to work 12-13 hours a day then come home, plop down on my bed and hammer out a bunch of drawings and stay up all night working on new ideas, writing new stories, exploring different avenues.
it was really easy for me to hold myself to that previous standard but looking back now i realize that yeah, of course it was easy for me to create like that back then even if i was physically and emotionally exhausted. i was discovering what would happen when i actually let myself create without restriction- real or otherwise. this was happening while i was going through an immensely difficult period of my life and it was just the perfect storm to shit out a million different things in every different directions. now that i'm exhausted and restrained, of course i don't feel like creating. it's damaged my ability to think creatively in a way, i'll get the feeling to make something but all of a sudden i'm in a position now where i don't know how to explore it. in the past i would've thrown myself in without a second care- but now it's like i can't even figure out how to just do anything for the hell of it anymore.
before i go any further, i want to state that i think that it's really easy to be doom and gloom about it all but i don't want that to be the general mood or vibe of this post. yeah, it does suck. it really does! no artist enjoys feeling their creative ability shrink away and die... but it's something that is fairly resilient, whether you recognize it or not. it's definitely something that you can nurture and build back up again with regular practice and mental clarity and also pulling out the plug that is damming up all the ideas that are begging to come out and do their thing. it's like i've had a big fat art tumor swelling up inside of me and i just want to take it out! a big fat art turd that's been clogging up my intestines and i'm ready to shit all my ideas out.
so that's what i've been doing... been thinking lots, contemplating, and i think it's finally cooked enough the pizza's ready to come out of the oven and i can reflect on it all. creating is hard. sharing art with the world is also hard. i have always been the type of person who thought that i didn't give a fuck about what people think of my art- but i think everyone does at the end of the day and when you hold yourself back from creating what you really want to create because you're worried about what people will say about it or think it's dumb/etc then you end up not wanting to make anything at all! so i'm continuing to nurture these ideas. i'm revisiting stuff, revamping it to make it better, rewriting, expanding, ripping it apart and putting it back together completely differently so i can stop denying myself the happiness of creating.
it's not a solid fix- i'll still have to deal with being an undergrad art student. but it's only two more years, and i think i might as well just say fuck it and start doing my own thing more and more there too. i had a cyanotype project due and i used some of my digital pieces to make prints out of... i was freaking out and when the pieces went up for group critique all i could think about was how embarassing my work was, how tryhard it is, how people are going to think it's too bizzare or whatever... i had a multitude of choices to present and i ended up taking one off the wall to switch it out with another, i just didn't feel good about keeping the piece up. (this was the piece, i don't have a scan of the cyanotype print but ill upload it when i find it) there was nothing wrong with it, i was just so scared to have people look at something that came from a genuine place. as i sat back down, one of my classmates who i sit next to caught a glance of it and went off about how cool they thought it was and how much they liked it.
my point is that... well... sometimes it really is all in your own head. at the end of the day, you just gotta be completely 100% authentic. anyways, i've gone on WAY too long! make what you want to make and do it however you want to do it. write whatever you want to write. if you don't, the inspiration will leave (but dont worry it will come back to it if you let it back in!)... it's just one piece of a larger puzzle. mental health also has a huge part to play in inspiration and creating, so don't feel bad if you're doing what you want to do but still don't feel it. and don't feel bad if you don't even know what you actually want to make in general, because i'm also kind of in that boat too... ig what i'm trying to say is it'll come back to you one way or another =]
well, hope you guys are having a good weekend and a lovely spring! lots of bad weather lately, hope it's steering clear of you wherever you may be... talk to you guys later. =] now that the semester is over, i'll be around a lot more! and hopefully more pictures to share with you all soon!
