I'm really inspired by the incidental wear patterns on everyday items. I take a lot of cues from worn building facades with many layers of paint, and old signage with ghosts of past advertisements. What do you think of the composition?
Some pages from a zine I started making last year to process my experiences with csa. Big ol' trigger warning as the pages are often intentionally triggering. (The one page depicting "flashing" is actually a proboscus monkey nose photo I cut out of a nation geographic, it's just meant to be startling.)
I wanted to express a feeling I went through as a survivor that I don't feel a lot of people talk about, which is how having those experiences so young inevitably ends up perverting how you interact with 'innocent' media and experiences down the line. Especially when you're young and still trying to figure out what's happening to you. *Everything* begins to feel like innuendo, suggestion, and objectification when you can't parse out what's innocent and what's a threat.
To speak to that I decided to use individually innocuous images, found objects, my own childhood drawings and school assignments to paint a picture of disgust and revulsion at the perversion of innocence.
I feel quite vulnerable sharing it at all because I feel like it's not the "right" way society wants people to present their trauma. You have to be clean, past it, above it, when the reality is it colors every aspect of who you are.
Anyway, I hope it speaks to someone here.
I worked full time as an artist for 5 years. Did decently well, by starving artist standards, but never enough to really thrive. Found myself tired of trying to market myself at the same time as trying to make art, pack it, ship it, etc. I never felt happy trying to tailor what I made to what ppl wanted to buy, so I gave up. I sell a couple small things at a booth I have in town, but that's it. Everything else I keep.
I've had a lot more creativity. I really think I've found my voice as an artist, and I'm a lot happier with my work when I'm making it for myself primarily. However, now I've run into the problem of storage. My house is tiny, 900sqft. My 'studio' is a hallway. Every wall pretty much is covered in oil paintings. I have stacks and stacks of monoprints just lying around. I've filled all the binders and folios I had to store my art. I've got a decade worth of sketchbooks and art books and linocuts that don't have shelves and just sit in piles. Shit gets ruined as I step over it or accidently spill on it. I just don't know what to do with it all.
Logically my brain says now that I have a large body of work I should put together a decent portfolio and try to apply to shows again so I can move some of this, but honestly? I don't really want to. I think my creativity gets quashed by the rejection. And I like my art. I *want* to keep it. But it's getting to be hoarding levels at this point. Any advice? Thanks.
Ciri was born a singlet kitten in my backyard 4 years ago. After three weeks her mom disappeared, and she climbed up my pant leg, screaming her head off when I went outside to water my plants (an impressive feat for a kitten who barely had her eyes open.) She was the first of over 20 bottle babies I've raised.
She turned into such a unique looking cat, with so many funny quirks. She won't touch any other human food, but loves the juice from green olives. (Which I did not find out gets cats high until after she stole some from me the first time. She only gets a lick on special occasions.)
She would have made an absolutely horrible outdoor cat. She's a princess who doesn't know how to bat at toys properly, let alone hunt. She likes to be held and rocked like a baby. She asked for affection by slowly leaning up against your shoulder, and then slide flopping into your lap after 10 minutes of slowly creeping closer. What a weirdo.
This one is the 5th painting I've done in a series where I explored combining oil painting with abstract sculpture on canvas. It has quickly become my favorite medium. This one got a little too self indulgent though. I need to tone down some muddiness on my next pass. At any rate, I'm enjoying the process.
My old smart phone broke a little over a month ago. I had actually been looking at getting a dumb phone for a long time, and ordered one soon after my old one broke, but the company was real dodgy abt shipping, and I canceled the order. I intended to pick a new phone, but I never really found one that fit my needs, and as the weeks went on, I started to hate the idea of having one at all.
I just feel SO free. I've nearly completely reset my attention span. For the first time in years I can sit down and actually watch a movie w/o having to do something else at the same time. I can sit in moments of silence w/o entertainment. Boredom is no longer agony. I was an avid reader as a kid. I hadn't read in years before this happened, but since losing the phone I've finished six pretty decent sized books. I no longer have the constant notification anxiety that comes with being "available" to contact 24/7. The only news I've heard in weeks has been what's made it to my local radio station which I trust to be accurate and nonsensational. I've been focused on local news, which I can actually affect, instead of just constantly being bombarded by tragedy from every corner of the globe that I feel compelled to feel miserable about. I still check social media and email once a day on my computer, but my scrolling has been cut down to maybe 25 mins a day, instead of multiple hours. The deep sense of security that comes from knowing I can't be tracked, analyzed, advertised to, and monetized every second of every day has been so comforting.
Don't get me wrong. It has been inconvenient, but a lot less so that I assumed it would be. Mostly the "inconvenience" comes from other ppl being annoyed at the fact that they cannot constantly contact me. It's really annoying to others that I get to choose who occupies my time.
I know eventually I'll have to get at least a cheap flip phone for safety purposes, but right now, knowing I'm purposely opting out of a forced system which monetizes our anxiety and alters our brain functioning makes me feel really good.
Anyway, what I'm saying is, if you lurk this sub because the idea sounds good, but you're convinced it's impossible to function without a smart phone in this world, its not. It's inconvenient, but not impossible. It only took a couple weeks to nearly completely reset my functioning to pre-phone levels. You can opt out of the system too.
At the end of every semester the students from my local art college campus scrap all their "failed" assignments and test papers. Then I raid the bins and put together a collage art book/zine made entirely out of what I find there. Here's some pages from last semester's book, "Hit the Bricks."