But really I just needed to change my journal.

I didn't know what else to say, other than, "I have a turtle."

Let's all concentrate on bringing back my journal writing mojo.

Holy crap!

I got a daily deviation!! I am so stoked!!

Many thanks to my new heterosexual lovers, *LazyGunn and ~StarbucksDream who nominated my painting! And who "got it". It's awesome. I'm building you an altar of worship out of empty paint tubes and used paper palettes.

Let me say that I feel very strongly about this painting I did. I don't think I could have stripped myself bare more for a piece. I did the emotional equivalent of posing for Hustler in doing this. And I am in love with the piece and half in love with the woman in the painting (recalling "Pygmalion"...).

It's only worth it if it's difficult to do.

I gave this away to Ann Bannon, who wrote these books from 1957 - 1962. It sucked for a lot of women back then. The memory of my confusion, isolation, and loneliness coming out in the South, I know, is a mere fraction of what women felt then. It took a different kind of bravery than we know now to come out then. Although Bannon herself was married and let a sort of double life (and much of it in fantasy in her writings) she provided hope and unspoken passion for thousands of women who had nothing to look forward to. I did this painting for me, but I did it for her, too. I asked her if she wanted it and she said yes, so I sent it away. She's going to hang it in her living room. The best thing ever to happen to me in art happened when she told me she wanted it. I'm not sure why it's more exciting for me to give this to her than it is to win a buttload of money in some art contest, but it is.

Thanks for all your favorites and comments. Thanks to everyone who "gets it", even if you don't have those memories yourself.


CLUBS

A play on Stereo MC's "Get Connected"

THE MESSAGE

See, I answered my own journal entry from June 15 about growing as an artist and a person. Get rejected.

I started art so late in life I don't have time anymore to battle with wondering if I should continue art in my life's course. I'm doing it. It's like I stored up my debilitating perfectionism all in 29 years and had to make a decision about what what more important: impotence from fear or creation despite the personal risks?

Not like I don't still encounter this kind of perfectionism. I made an analogy the other day that once I had a cat that liked to jump on the kitchen countertops at night and shed on them. My mom didn't like that, so one evening she placed tape adhesive side up to stick to the cat to get her to stop that. When we woke up in the morning, the tape was in a furry ball in the middle of the floor and the poor cat was panting, exhausted in the corner, eyeing the tape warily. I'm the cat, and the furry ball of tape is my perfectionism.

So when I jump in, I jump in all the way. I entered a contest with a colored pencil variation of Guitar and Banjo with Chili Pepper lights: [link] and it took me a long time to do, and I was rejected. Didn't even make it to the finals.

Ironic, as I created Guitar and Banjo with Chili Pepper Lights after a particularly grueling gallery night where a couple folks came in and pointed at all my art at that time, saying, "Crap. Awful. Horrible. More crap." It was excessive insult and it made me really f*cking mad. What was I supposed to do but come back with the best painting I had ever done up to that point?

I've read a few journal entries of folks who get rejected. Yeah, it sucks. And it hurts, but we need it every once in a while to push us harder. If it's pushing you too hard, push back. Sometimes I start a painting like a boxer with a very pisspoor attitude entering the ring: I will kick this painting's ass before it kicks mine.

And we also have to find the the line between sour grapes (that contest sucked anyways!) and better judgment (they wanted me to change my art for their crappy little gallery? i think not) and honest good critique when we should actually shut up and listen. I'm still learning this last bit, but more importantly, I'm learning how to trust my own judgment. Rock on.


CLUBS

I'm an aunt!!

The Message

For the first time, I'm an aunt! I have a nephew who was born 7/8/07. Finally one of my parents' children produces something worthy!

I also submitted a piece of art to a contest to be placed on a CD for KBCO Studio C Volume 19 (Boulder, CO). There's online voting, so if I make it into the finals, you can be sure I will be whoring myself out as much as possible...

Other than that, I don't have much to say. Will update about the contest later.

Clubs

Questions first, disclaimers later!

THE QUESTIONS

Is fantasy art, photomanipulation, emo art, furry art, manga, and other expressions of this kind of fantasy an avoidance of reality?


And if so, can personal growth be made if one is trying to avoid reality?


If you got this far, the reasons why I ask:

These kinds of art do not appeal to me, and there is *a lot* of it here at dA. Not because they don't have artistic value - some of it is astonishingly good. But in the avoidance of reality is the avoidance of true emotional journeys: confronting one's own emotions and/or demons and overcoming them to become stronger. If an artist stays within this fantasy realm, and using my logic, of course, the emotional side of the artist stagnates to exist in an extended state of avoidance.

Masterpieces and groundbreaking works of art have in common that they identify human emotions that everyone can relate to. There are large numbers of people who relate to the kinds of art mentioned above, but they generally don't break ground and stir revolutions because they are so particular to small groups. There are extraordinary exceptions to this, but those exceptions, once more, relate to the broad scale of human emotions that everyone knows.

I think no one who participates in these expressions of fantasy can sustain them forever. Or, quite rarely does this occur. For most, they are stepping stones or phases in the full journey of life, but they all serve the same purpose - to encapsulate the participant in a state of fantasy.

So how do you grow? How do you challenge yourself and stretch higher?


CLUBS