How I've Missed You
From a dream.
(Digital)
I am currently working doggedly on multiple, slightly adjacent, existential crises.
The world.
As an historian, I’m inoculated against the belief that this is the worst time in history, but that doesn’t mean I’m having a good time. I do get the occasional dopamine rush when people who spent most of my youth telling me to be more positive whine to me about how everyone is evil and stupid. A couple days ago my mother asked me if there’s any hope, which I choose to believe vindicates me wholly. This new appreciation everyone seems to have recently developed for not just facing reality, but asking me about it, is a treat I’m trying not to take for granted.
2. Art
Every artist is obligated to freak the fuck out every now and again. It’s in the contract written on our bones: “must succumb to the melodrama.” My favorite case was Modigliani, burning his shit on his lawn. For me, this crisis always looks the same: frustration, despair, determined abandonment, reconciliation with reality, begrudging acceptance of calling, resumption of artly duties. I don’t have a choice.
3. Humans
I don’t know what it is about my mind that wedges a slice of glass between me and the rest of the world, but it’s been there most of my life and I doubt it’s going anywhere. I have come to the point of basic acceptance of this fact that includes respect for other human needs and my own proclivities. I am curious about people and fond of them; I like to help them. There are some that I love. But I do not really feel in the world with them for any but the most fleeting moments.
I am much better at feelings and purpose and meaning when I’m dreaming. It’s a world that makes sense to me. Sometimes I get to see my dead friends and tell them I love them. That feels more relevant, right now, than any of my personal worldly concerns.
Return of the Tarot
And into the cups.
(Pencil on Paper)
I seem to have dragged my dollhouse scale issues along with me. I know what my brain wants, but my eyes do not agree with what it and my hands are doing.
A house divided, and all that… (to push the dollhouse metaphor to it’s breaking point).
The Dollhouse; Interior
The thing about drawing a dollhouse…
(Ink on Paper; Digital Color)
…is that if you draw the facade, it pretty much just looks like a house. So I drew the inside. Which looks like suffering if you're me and loathe perspective.
When I was a kid I went to Chicago with my best friend’s family and they took us to a museum where we saw a giant dollhouse with running water and working lights. It was amazing.
I own two dollhouses, neither of which are that amazing, but which I putter about in from time to time, adding lights or fun decor. The above dollhouse used to belong to the aforementioned best friend, given to her by the grandparents who took us to the museum in Chicago.
I’ve done weird things to it, of course. Because I am a weird person. But I like the story of it, the layers and levels of it, lurking in the corner in my basement, watching to see what I’ll do to it next.
To Pay Your Way
From a dream.
(Digital)
In which I carried pennies around in my mouth to pay the fees I knew I owed.
That seems like the sort of potent imagery that heralds some deeper meaning, but I'm too distracted by my revulsion to slobber to find it.
Seriously. Gross.
Mock up
My brain does not like working horizontally.
(Digital)
I’m working on sketches for an upcoming show’s flyers and I'm trying stuff out before I sit down with pencil in hand. Mostly because I can sketch on my phone while lying in bed. Which is nice.
I’m also working on finding a new show to replace Supernatural as my background show. Tonight I picked Battlestar Galactica and that was a mistake because I didn’t draw, I just watched Battlestar Galactica.
Which would be awesome, if I had time to just watch TV without working. But I don’t. Ah, well. I’ll rest eventually.
Ankh-Morpork in the Fog
With the Brass Bridge, the Tower of Art, and the Patrician's Palace blurrily present.
(Digital)
Two of Wands
The twos are finished! Hurrah!
(Ink on Paper; see more in the Tarot Gallery)
I also just finished my Supernatural rewatch. It took all 15 seasons of Supernatural to finish 22 tarot cards. That’s roughly 1.5 cards per season.
First of all: While it’s true to I drew some other things in that 15 season stretch, holy shit, that’s a lot of Sam and Dean per card. With a dash of Cas and a dollop of Crowley thrown in.
Second: what the fuck am I gonna watch now!? It might be Battlestar Galactica, it might be LOST, I might just listen to Discworld for a bit. The nice thing about having a show on is that it encourages me to look up and rest my eyeballs once in awhile.
Ending Supernatural while moving past the twos and toward the higher cards is nice narrative congruence. For a show that starts out about good and evil, with clear delineations between right and wrong, it sure works its way into refreshing complexity.
I’ll try to do the same.
