THIS is how this whole new set of paintings started. I decided to study line drawings again, because I love making them, and so I honestly started looking up line drawings on Google. I was truly inspired. There are SO MANY amazing people out there who openly share their talents. I missed sharing mine. I’m also in a band, Tsumi, and we are in constant need of fliers. I hate it how most bands literally steal an independent artist’s work for their fliers. I hate myself for doing it in the past. I don’t want to be that kind of person anymore. There are starving artists partially because we, as artists, steal and starve one another. But my art could translate well into fliers and I could end that cycle for myself. I started thinking, if I just add an amp here or some records there… WHAM. My brain was full. I spent a whole Friday drawing and redrawing and redrawing again. I burnt out the light in my light table. Stole another bulb from a lamp. I was running hot and I knew it. I finished one. I did the whole shebang over again the next day. Hours and hours on another piece. Finished.
So I made a flier and was really happy with it. But it wasn’t enough and I knew it. It was time to get out the glue.
I was graciously gifted a bunch of windows by a fellow artist friend, Jason Oran. Ready framed glass. For Valentine’s Day my husband took me to Gomez Art Supply. My health is leaps and bounds better. All my excuses were removed.
So I got up and cleaned out my neglected studio. It had been so long that there were still beer cans in here and I was diagnosed as gluten intolerant in March of 2012. (Yikes!) I got tired of cleaning while waiting for things to dry. I started looking at this old blog, how it felt amazing to write, how I hated the scheduled nature of it. How I need a schedule.
One thing I haven’t told you yet is that three months ago I was not okay. I have been struggling with severe depression for years, covering it with frantic frenzied bursts of creativity, drowning it in alcohol and too loud of laughter, sequestering it and myself in a dark empty house. I finally decided after a serious breakdown in January to see a therapist. I didn’t see how bad it was. How I was dying for help while steadfastly refusing it, falling into a cycle of struggling that became routine (wake up, cry, work, cry, dive home and get the rest of the crying out so no one will see you cry now that it’s time to rejoin the rest of the world) while my personal beliefs held me back from taking my doctor’s advice of “taking something” to help me out. Stupid. All of it. I was so depressed I couldn’t draw or write music and my sense of humor was swiftly dying. What the fuck is the point of that??? Something had to change. My rad therapist heard my concerns about pills but pointed out that, should I break my ankle, I would have no problem taking pain pills and using crutches. Shit, my awesome girlfriend pointed out I even self medicated like a madwoman. Why wouldn’t I try this? So, here I am, 10mg of Lexapro a day and I can fucking live and not simply function.
I was also diagnosed as ADD. I had an office job where I was the only person there. Literally. With little to do. I hated it. The job was actually starting to kill me as it added that much to the negative shit in my life. So, when I lost my job (honestly, got fired for quitting), I was SO HAPPY. I got another one right away but had a week off in between. I cleaned the house while finishing the painting. I posted progress on my Facebook. I got feedback. I felt like I had risen from the dead to find I wasn’t forgotten.
Then the new job was awful. Sorry folks, but no form of health care should come with a tent revival style sales pitch. “If you don’t chose care with us you’re actively choosing disease.” Fuck that. One day and I quit. I’ve been dealing with traditional doctors who are little better than snake oil salesmen for a decade. No one would help me because I didn’t have insurance. By the time I did have it, there was so much wrong it was hard to find the source. I’m NOT going to work for someone who insists that everything can be cured with their care save emergency medicine. Same shit, different tack. Quitting felt good. Instead of freaking out about the lack of income, I painted and cleaned for another week until I realized that part of the problems with these jobs was that I hated them. I’m excellent at customer service and office work but… ADD. I missed kitchens… Was I well enough to go back to them?
So now I work at a gourmet salad shop! It’s easy, the hours are light, and I have time and emotional energy to paint. Not only that but, if you didn’t know this before, there is a special personality type that works in a kitchen and does it well. I am one of these types and, as is often the case, I don’t really fit anywhere else. This used to hurt, the fact that no one seemed to want me. But my new boss, J., hired me on the spot as we had worked together before and he knew that this is something I excel at. See, when you do what you’re supposed to do, it’s easy like water running down a rock.
And so it is with the paintings again. I am back in my wheelhouses. Music, art, cooking, and love. Hopefully this blog will turn into me sharing all of these things (I have got some recipes that will make you nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnngh)
