Lexi: Love of Life

I don't write about myself a lot.

By myself, I mean the tangles of emotions that inhabit and inhibit me on a daily basis. To publicize my emotions directly can be dastardly, as observed from personal past experiences. The explanation could be my masculine personality, or simply because I avoid confrontation at many costs. I do write; I write ideas.

But I think I will attempt to describe my emotions. Once. Twice. Maybe three times. But most likely, once. I intend not to trap a fly in my web of personality.

I will start off explaining this obstruction of self-expression.

For years I've pursued the communication known as art, the visual medium. This pursuit has experienced its spikes and troughs throughout the years of my life... and never before these months have I collapsed into such a valley; nay, a hole. For weeks, a picture of my own creation has neglected to show itself on paper or screen. Is it because I have sought other activities to keep me busy? Is it because of school? Is it because art is no longer my niche?

There is no doubt a core to this happenstance. The latter half of my elementary years was the time I sincerely adopted the pastime of drawing. For hours, I would sketch fantasy creatures, both preexistent or created by me and Celeste, both inside the classroom and outside the classroom. Art was simultaneously a defense mechanism and a mental escape: among the harassment I would receive by peers on a daily basis, compliments on my talent seemed to balance this out. If homework was taxing on my composure, drawing would release the stress. This continued through my junior high years, up and through high school. As high school progressed, the frequency of pieces created by me gradually decreased. Recently, it has nearly flatlined.

Taking the "core" into consideration, I mention once again that the reason I began to take drawing seriously was to please others around me, and to provide a means of abandoning reality. Comparing this to my modern-day situation and personality, I persist both on the appeasement toward my fellow humans, but I stand more firm on the ground of reality than ever before. So now I seek the answer as to how this perspective has shifted my artistic habits: because I gravitate toward reality more, I resort to fantasy less. Because I have never taken other people out of the picture, reality is now the central motive of my art.

Now for pathos.

It is now I realize, reality should NEVER be a motive for art. Art is meant to transcend the concept of reality. If I keep looking through the scope of reality to create, the motive will be empty. Art should not be a business until someone has found their place in their realm. I have not found my place... I have not a single idea what my style is anymore. For hours, I will sit with the photoshop program up and running in front of me, and nothing will have appeared on the wretched screen. It's building up... there's so much backed up inside of my mind, and there's this constipation of expression. All the music I've listened to and come to appreciate, all the pictures I see, all the books I've read, all the fruitful lectures I've experienced at MJC, and how do I show it all off if I can't even draw for myself anymore? Six or seven people throughout these months have told me that I should become a tattoo artist, and everytime they tell me such a thing, it kills me a little bit on the inside because I know I could never become one in my current state... I don't know who I am anymore. I haven't a clue what my artistic identity is. So many requests to finish... people love my art, but I don't know why they do if I not even I love it anymore... where has it gone? Certainly not home.

My art is dying...