I see people going to my site make a beeline for my old blog posts, it makes me feel disrespected. There are nothing but decade old dead and dusted 'followers' on blogger yet, I don't care. I's honestly damn cool to keep the blogger spirit alive, seeing as I abandoned my Tumblr, don't think I deleted it, just made it private like I had for this one. For that reason, chunks of my art-life (and life) are private online, lost to the scrolling abyss of Facebook, or in the hundreds of raunchy art and bile-filled Tweets deleted.
Twitter I can deal with losing, it was (is still) a toxic environment for me. A place as intimately aspirational as this one however, I can't bear to part with. I'm somewhat interested in the thought of my work being an internet relic, like how much I damn wish they preserved the charm of Neopets, back before Viacom bought it and leeched all the life from the art.
I have been reminiscing about my Calfarts days, which I often do. This time however, a bit more actively, as I've decided to write a travel piece about my time in Los Angeles. It may have been a long time ago, as time continues to escape me, but it is a time of my life that continues to haunt me. I think since I've faced the darkness of being rejected as a 'good' artist post psychosis, I've had to face that the Calarts dream of fame and fortune I thought I needed to obtain is truly a sickening pursuit not meant for someone like me. I've had to face that there are limits to how hard a wounded brain can push itself and limitations on the soul of cruelly not being 'good enough'.
No. I am 'good' enough.
It doesn't matter if people only click on my 'pre psychosis' blog.
It doesn't matter if others don't value my life 'post psychosis'.
I am alive and kicking. That's what really matters.
Someday I will die, but maybe this blog will still be around. Thanks to Google's policies?
Honestly, truly, just being real....Calarts reminds me of days of budding love and sexuality, the latter being something I didn't feel so strongly when I was a bit younger. Unfortunately, college was full of distressing moments, a feeling of not being adequate romantically, which has ended up tormenting me for a very long time. As I leave my 20s behind me, I hope I can say I'm approaching an era of my life which I can fully heal, from the bitter experiences of that barely 19 year old girl. The trauma of my mid-to-late twenties has really thrown me for a loop, and made it harder to untangle the earlier youthful pain from the 'psychotic blackout traumer'. Then again, there I go being intimate online. In a public place where morons can go and message me on Facebook saying: "I see you've had a hard time for a long time.." etc. as nosy losers have done.
I cried while drawing the below picture. For I felt a great healing and love surge through me by drawing that bright eyed gaze. A look without judgement, pity or anything bad It is simply pure love.
Still what I have taken from the Calarts dream isn't all negative. I worked harder than ever, pushed myself past the brink of madness with drawing, seeking, playing and experiencing. I lived for art, but then again, didn't I always? It's evidenced by the free willed and vivacious sketches I did during my time in high school at damn Pembroke.
It's all here, on this blog. I had a spirit before Calarts and I'll carry a spirit onwards. I thought I should say, no offense to Calartians, really, but it was a vulnerable time and place for a few people I knew. I'm not alone. I think shoving a bunch of intense dreamers of various personality types in a confined college setting, it going to be a recipe for disaster. I regret not being stronger, mature and more 'with it' sort of person but still, I do not regret my reasons for ultimately dropping out. There was something wrong with the experience for me.
I only felt like people felt my art with reaching success with Disconnected on YouTube. Anyways, I've rambled way too long and fallen down the bittersweet nostalgia rabbit hole. I regretfully admit however, this crunchy carrot is very bitter.
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