This is serious.... Sort of.

I think I’m having an artistic identity crisis. What is the cause? Well, maybe it’s the fact that I’m getting the first formal art education in my life, and it’s making me more critical of my normally whimsy ass Burton-esque drawings. All these little things about colour theory and proportions and technique, they’re starting to matter to me.

    It’s not necessarily about following all of the rules and replicating old masters. Education and knowledge is like putting on tinted glasses that make you point out things you would’ve otherwise ignored. This can be a blessing and a curse, but for me it hasn’t been the latter very much.  

    But where do I go from here? I love painting portraits and things like that, and I’d say I’ve got a fairly good eye for drawing people in general. In the past year or so, I’ve just felt a lot of influence from Andrew Wyeth(possibly my favorite painter) and other realistic artists, and surrealists like Dali. Their technique and colour selcection are impeccable, and I still get excited about their work even if I’ve seen it many times before. I think I’m just growing up, perhaps.

    As nostalgic and whimsical as I can be, there’s more to me than just some creepy doodles and pictures of waifish fairies… I think there’s plenty of magic in the real world, and maybe I need to start drawing/painting the way I see that magic. I don’t ever want to abandon illustration, because it’s so fun and it’s the style that go me into art. And I definitely think there can be a merging of countless  art forms and styles and techniques. But more and more, I’m grasping for something outside of those boundries. I want to make people feel something. That feeling that I get, when I’m working on a really time-consuming painting for days and there’s quiet music in the backround- I feel like I’m doing the right thing, like I might as well be painting with my own blood, because I’m not withholding anything. It’s just me and my thoughts and dreams.But it’s something that other people can admire and feel with a similar intensity (hopefully).

Maybe I should stop worrying about what I don’t want to be, and focus on who I am right now.

And maybe some day, I’ll be better. But that doesn’t really matter if I’m of a free mind and heart, does it?

"After the Full Moon"

   Guilt never made her stomach turn-
necessity is necessity.
    What she didn't like was the dark amnesia...


             No recollection.


   There was never a face to go with that heart,
the remnants of which still trickle off her cold, pale lips.
    Manners don't matter so much when you're hungry,


             And she was.


    Still, a nauseating memory gnaws at her belly-
"It's like reading your favorite character's death,"
    she writes shakily in an old, dubious journal.


            Words written in crimson.

   
   

"Eye Contact"

I almost had forgotten what it was like...

     That sickening stab of  nervous surprise.

    

 My heart bellowed behind my ribs-

     It beat the bones like a thousand caged butterflies.

I strode a bit more quickly now.

     I feared the commotion could be heard from inside of me.

I'm hardly aware of the reasons and causes,

     They are strangers, just like you.

What a feeling, though,

From someone I hardly know.

    

     

    

      

I felt you on my bare arms and face-

a warm, balmy wind that lulls everyone it meets.

Drifting through willow trees,

playfully tousling my hair-

Oh, to float away like you do!

Yet, I am thankful for your ghost now residing in the air,

with his cold, metallic aroma burning my nostrils.

In the presence of the icy current, a feeling stirs within;

Your breath whispers ancient December tales.

Frigid and chemical, yet strangely sentimental.

The Dream Diaries. (Part I)

 "Sleep Walking"

     I sat in my room all day, lethargic and disbelieving that the clouds above could hold such a ridiculous amount of water. I knew it'd been an oddly warm, soggy autumn, and learned to expect uncanny, flood waters flow across the sidewalks like they were racing each other to the sewage drain. These days, the swampy voyage of neighbors to their mailboxes was safer when made via swinging rope, a particularly brilliant way of travel if you ask me. Life in Foxley, such a normally safe, generic town spent their days confounded by the never-ending wetness of earth, and the velvety gray clouds that wrapped the atomosphere in an eery, yet beautiful melancholia.
   
Two.....
            Three.......
                   
     Four hours and five minutes crept away as I lie, wide eyed underneath my comforter. I thought, and thought, and thought about every little thing that floated into my mind. I  thought of the interesting, interpersonal, and intergalactic. It was a mess- a beautiful mess. The more I thought, the more I discovered. The more I discovered, the warmer I felt. There was a warmth, but also a sadness. I didn't mind it , though... Everything was all starting to feel....the same....

     When closed my eyes at last,  I felt the warmth dissipate from my feet quickly.

      I gasped in surprise as a tiny army of sharp, icy droplets began to douse my face.

Typewriters.

They're such a fantastic concept. 

Think about it. There are no backspaces, no copy and paste. One simply writes the best they can, and it’s done. Their train of thought makes a permanent stop in a train station made of paper. It’s permanently there stretched out across a harsh white plane in a timeless, crisp font.  It’s no wonder why the some of the greatest books and poems were written on them, as well as by hand… I think things written in ink have such a deep honesty to them. Of course this doesn’t apply to every single written work, but as a a general theory, it makes sense…

It’s so easy to pretend these days… To cover up our mistakes. To torture thoughts and actions to “near perfection”. We’re a generation obsessed with always getting it right and a burning desire to succeed and be revolutionary, and think that it’s achieved by reaching an unrealistic standard that society has formed for us out of fear and ignorance. Truth of the matter is, we’re not all little robots. I wish people were less afraid of failure. Less afraid of being different. I wish people would take the time to write what they want, but to deeply think about it. I wish I wasn’t so apprehensive about writing terrible poetry, or not writing something that everyone will understand.

The reason I like typewriters and writing letters is because it makes me want to pursue excellence. To the best of my ability. I guess by excellent, I mean totally raw, fearless originality. I want people to feel like I thought about something that I’ve written… That I’m writing how I honestly feel.

A fresh, unclear thought can be put in order on paper. Revision after revision, it may not ever be what you wanted, but how cool is it that you’ve just pulled something out of your brain, your own personal wonderland, and translated it into a physical, legible Daydream On Paper: to either share with the world or just to look back on when you’re old and your opinions have changed. This is one of the reasons I love writing! Words can carry your soul and speak your deepest thoughts long after you’ve disappeared from this life. Would you like to leave something behind? Write it out. Make it beautiful…. But more importantly, make it real.

Say what you mean. Mean what you say.

XOXO

Dear Friend,

What’s happened to you?

You were princess among all others.

Dancing in the eery twilight,

Joining in the owl’s anthem to the man in the moon.

Why then, have you ripped off your faerie wings?

Daughter Nature, clothed in magic and warmth,

is now a distant, flaring star.

Come back to us.

Come back to me.

  A poem I wrote for someone I miss... The first of many.