*Just as a word of warning: this time of year, my depression likes to flare up and pull me down, so if my tone has been a little too self denigrating as of late, you know why. I don't have seasonal adaptation disorder because it also happens in the summer. My guess is it's probably all the Christmas-y jabberwocky, but I can't say for sure. On top of that, aside from Chris and everyone in the Ten Commandos, this year was an absolute shit fest.
But all things aside...
When
I was in elementary school, I would draw.
I
found some regular old printer paper and used that as my drawing surface
because even at a young age, I was a compulsive doodler and a
people pleaser. I had difficulty asking for what I want despite being
told to speak up. I still have trouble to this day because I always
expect an answer like “what?? you want DRAWING PAPER??? LOLOLOLOL”,
or met with something of the like. Hence the internal response,
“well, you told me to speak up, so I did. What were you expecting?”
However
drawing from a young age was still a way to express myself, even with
printer paper and a regular No. 2 pencil. Everything I put down on paper
I fabricated completely on the spot, and the stories behind said
works were either inspired by a book I read or something I saw on TV.
I would play outside until the streetlights came on either by myself
or with the neighbor kids, and just let my imagination run wild.
The
year 2000 introduced me to the dark side. In the first half of
the first grade, I sensed goings on in the world from noticing hushed
rumors buzzing about pertaining to “the end of the world” and a
“nuclear holocaust”. Of course, Y2K never happened and the world
contributed to their own hysteria only to appear foolish.
I
can, however, clearly recall my perplexed emotions and feeling the
surreal morose environment at school on September 11. I can confess
to trying to accept the fact that anyone born after 1998 have no
memory. I can readily admit 9/11 is the very reason why I refuse to
hate any other human being, even when there are a lot of people in
the world who make me want to punch a hole in the wall.
Seven
months later, my dad fell ill with pneumonia which, because of the
hysteria at the time, was hypothesized as anthrax; he survived after spending two weeks in the hospital, but
the fact remains. A year later, my parents and I had to leave our
home in Carson City for reasons I am forbidden to say to a town in
the middle of nowhere in central California.
With
the induction of the New Millennium, I grew increasingly
introspective and somber, nihilistic even. In retrospect, I would
catch myself thinking these strange, almost existential thoughts, for
example... what if the world ends tomorrow and yet I haven't even felt true
love, or experienced the world at large, or lived out my purpose in life.
I
managed to maintain my sense of humor, but this shadowy side within
me from when I was about six years old slowly developed and
progressed, and no one really knew about this side of me until after
my parents split up in the tail end of my senior year. I not only was
unaware of my shadow and even if I was aware, I am a people pleaser,
scared shitless of having a low opinion slapped onto me. In fact, I
was always really anal on sharing my artwork or my writing with
anybody for this reason.
Externally,
I have a father whose intellect is very questionable (I hate to say
it, but even now after he sobered up), and his siblings can't go two
seconds without trash talking another human being and also relying on
one another to make a decision, a mother who's more (there really is no other way to say it) “out there”
than I am, and a brother who's a bit of a stick in the mud. Thus I
grew up not only witnessing the morbid nature of the world but also
feeling like an outcast in a big family of chatterboxes and shiny,
happy people. (yes, that REM pun was intentional)
Of
course I was going to keep my damn mouth shut and keep it to myself.
If
I made note of any part it whatsoever, everyone would either helicopter over me or hate and
alienate me and leave me alone with no backing. I held this side
under wraps but I did what I did artistically because I felt the need
to, I needed to itch that scratch inside me, and I could not find
another way to express myself, even if no one saw my self expression.
I carry this same attitude to this day.
The
downside to this is I turned into an awkward overweight shrinking
violet in middle school and then a devil-may-care wallflower worker
bee in high school. I went with the flow. Sure, I showed some emotions but I wore a mask and made everyone think otherwise. I was lost, with very little
definition of myself. I even forced myself into a field I grew to
hate just to make my family happy.
***Not
gonna lie: I sometimes feel as if when I entered this world, the
gatekeeper said “okay, the whole world is going to want to
annihilate you. Hard. To the point in which you hate yourself so
much, you want to make an exit. To the point in which your given
family is even going to turn against you by the time you actually
begin to feel comfortable with yourself just to keep you from
feeling. To the point in which you feel as if everything you do is
bullshit and you should just exit already.”
However,
the opportunity came in middle school when I improvised a style of
cartooning that took me forever to define, but finally decided on
this: black licorice flavored beings convoluted into a soup of manga
(because I hung out with the otaku kids at the time), John Dilworth, Brett Helquist, Matt Groening, Dreamworks' animated movies, classic fairytales, and even Aesop's fables,
treated as dolls and born under the stars because the first batch was
brought forth at night.
Recently
I simplified the description to “Candied Stardust”, which is also
a style of painting I dappled with back in August to serve as a
satire of an artist who basically stole my friends and took my Soundgarden fan club
away from me, and was a bitch to me. Stylistically, the paintings is
very similar to that artist, but it was a way of thumbing my nose at that person; my musical cartoons are
“Superunknown Moonshine”.
Unfortunately, my initial primitive cartoons went AWOL after I relocated to south Oregon
so I can't show them even if I wanted to.
I
injected the “black licorice” venom one night and over the course
of the next day in my freshmen year of college with a… mechanical
pencil and a regular Bic pens.
 |
| Said it before, and I'll say it again, the Tim Burton style is purely coincidental |
Again,
I never intended anyone to see them because I'm a people pleaser and
also a cactus.
 |
| *whistles; slowly.. walks... away...* |
I
have reached the point now where self-expression is the norm.
I have
to share.
I have to show the world.
Not sharing is my demise.
Not
sharing gives me depression and the scream roars out in the worst way
possible.
Not sharing brings an implosion unto myself.
Not sharing is
suicide.
This
would explain why I never understood what is so glamorous about
having a boring day job that you hate for the sake of having a
half-assed paycheck to fall back on. Another reason is routines
trigger my depression and my insomnia, and I have had IBS since I was
eleven: strenuous work environments force me into a bathroom. I do
not have a regular 9-to-5 job for the sake of my physical and mental
health, and for the sake of my purpose in life, regardless of whether
or not I make money. We also live in a different time, the New Millennium, a period in which you really don't have to work as hard thanks to advancing technology and the discovery of new fields (I'm not saying you should quit your job, I'm just giving my stance). We also live in a pathetic economy on the verge
of collapse again. Thus I can say I don't see the point of losing sleep over finding
a day job that I would probably hate and lose after a brief amount of
time when I could be doing what I love.
Besides,
I much prefer going to school. Despite only receiving my associate's
in general art, I have officially declared myself a professional
student as well as a professional artist because I want to get my
MFA. I can play with my schedule to my liking, and I enjoy
taking classes and learning new things, specifically if said things
are artistic or humanities related. If science is involved, it's
biology, or chemistry, or one of the earth sciences; I learned the
hard way that physics is just not for me.
And
besides, who said a job has to be dull and tedious?
I want to
know who said you have to do something you hate in order to live,
because I want to tell them they're out of their minds and that
common folk are fools for believing that.
Of course, it is out of my
control to do such a thing because I am not God, and not everyone will agree, and I
have no idea how to find out where and when that trend started, but I can say your job
can be fun.
You can make it your life.
You can actually love what you
do!
Just
ask these four guys.
Or
them.
And
who said your job has to be one thing and one thing only?
 |
| My drummer playing guitar? My drummer playing guitar. |
I
learned in my sophomore year of high school that I'm a visual,
audial, and kinesthetic learner, or rather, I learn by utilizing all
six of my senses. I'm an introverted socialite and an intuitive
sensualist. I'm an ambivert and I use my senses and my intuition.
I
deliver by the use of images. I express myself visually. I would have
known much earlier on if I have an eidetic memory, but I do remember
the sight of an event more than anything.
Hell, I
learned how to build a formula car and how to weld by using my hands
(both of which were the highlights from my stint in engineering school).
I'm always itching to build something, to make something with my
hands, whether said something is a six foot Tim Burton-style statue
made of wood or just a figurine made of clay.
There's even an actress
inside me, although my buttoned down exterior begs to differ. I
was in show choir in first and second grade, but I honed in my
singing voice in my freshman year of high school by trying to match
my voice to Chris, Eddie, and Scott, and I slowly developed my own
voice so I can say I'm a singer. It's funny, because for the longest
time when I was younger, hearing people sing, off-key in particular,
was a big turn off for me.
I
can't explain, it just always irritated me like the dickens.
When
that fateful day came, when I heard Outshined for the first time, and
then Fell on Black Days, my attitude changed. I thought, “oh my
God, I love this. I want this. This is mine. This is no one
else's”—and thus sparked my obsessive tendencies.
But
it's okay by me: it's all for my benefit. Thus I developed this
Dave Grohl-esque complex of “where did all of the daring, multi-talented revolutionary artists run off to?!” I am unafraid to
label myself a Renaissance woman or a Jill of all trades: the latter
of which is a compliment in my view. And yet, I still feel restrained
to express myself verbally. I still feel the need to please others
than to please myself.
Just
recently, I finally said “forget this, I am never giving my two
cents on anything ever again if everyone's going to either a.) strike
it down with a holier than thou attitude; b.) laugh at it like it's a
joke; or c.) just not listen.” I gave into peer pressure: every
time I open my mouth on Facebook, I'm just asking for a “no, that's
not true” from someone or met with a full-blown argument (yes, that
actually happened once). I also gave into familial pressure: I love
my dad and my brother, but they're MCPs. Both of them. They don't
listen to me, or any woman without "credentials" for that matter, and if I said the sky was blue, they would filibuster
it.
You
could say the reason for my struggles is from my being a white woman with dark hair and dark eyes. This
could play a part (besides, I've grown to be more humanist than
straight up feminist), but not the sole reason. I'm still caught up
short in why I feel the need to please everyone other than myself.
Then
again, the younger me expressed herself for herself and no one else.
I even wrote this because I'm a people pleaser who is coming to terms
with how she feels within.
I'll
never lose my innocence for a second, though.
It's
not just the darkness that keeps me going: it's the integrity of
doing what I love.
I
did not enter the art world to make money.
I did not embrace my
seven-year-old self when I made my Soundgarden cartoons to say “the
art world needs another pretentious fuck who will never actually get
her talent out into the world because she has the duty of attending
to a full-time job she actually hates and is never going to feel truly happy.”
I did not do my art teacher
in my later years of high school proud when I made the first drawing
of Ben I want to personally give to him to have the world tell me
what to do, what to feel, who to like, and how to express myself.
You
know why?
Because
that's what they want, and I have had my share of being their
servant. That's why I'm posting this here because I'm done feeling
afraid.
 |
| "We are Ten Commandos, people" |
