finding my way and other things

 

 

Working is taking a toll on me.  I used to think oh I am just a terrible person unable to work and if only I could be a better human I could work and live like normal people.  I knew this was a gamble.  I learned somewhere around 6 years ago that I have legit issues. I have issues that people growing up as a kid nowadays would be given supports to help. Instead I grew up being told my attitude was bad, I was lazy, I didn't work hard enough, etc.  Sigh it sucks to look back and think if only I had known sooner and been able to get help.

The trauma of living is now so ingrained in my dna I do not know how to seek help even when I know I need it.  Every time I try to reach out I get met with rejection or slaps of the hand and I recoil and just carry on figuring it out on my own.  Is this a good way, absolutely not but I am unable to find another way.  The other side effect is it has slowly eroded my ability and desire to try trusting anyone.  I have gained a lot of joy and understanding of who or what I am, and with that has come a peace I never knew existed.  I no longer want to give up my peace so I carry on alone.  But I probably could use some help.

I still carry the weight of my mistakes, they are lighter most days but sometimes they bog me down. Again if I had a community to turn to, but alas that is simply not.  I am trying to hold on to my creativity and to continue doing what brings me joy. But each cold/flu/illness takes another chunk out of me and I give up something I once loved and could not live without.  These days its my walks in the forest. I used to go walk every chance I got and always for several hours on weekends.  Some weekends I never leave my apt. I want to go, but my physical being and my executive malfunction conspire to keep me grounded.  I want to travel but again I am afraid to plan anything for fear I will find myself sick again.

This weekend it started off with a sudden and violent reaction to sesame. I did not go to the hospital I took my allergy meds, my inhaler and I did as little as possible on Saturday, the monsoon like rains made me feel less guilty about staying in.  Today I did go walk I touched trees and grass and mud. My joints hurt I am so exhausted but my mind still wants everything.

So I have been posting "comics" on tapas just making uploading and scheduling, then they just post.  I know my only followers are on instagram and tiktok but I have yet to figure out the best way to use those platforms to share.  Again I could use help but I don't know who to ask or what I actually need.  I will go on writing and creating and posting.  I imagine all my thoughts and words going out into a black hole and maybe on the other side someone sees something and thinks wow that's kinda neat. 

 

back to my burnout 

 

something something

 I took a chance and started posting on tapas. Its a webcomic and it feels wrong to post there in many ways but also i needed to kick myself i the ass with some artistic discomfort so.  This series will start appearing in july. Currently a series called the unseries is posting weekly, its a collection of shorts.  My art writing isn't really novel, isn't really comic, is maybe graphic novel but also sometimes super short story. so with no better idea in how to send it to the void this is what i am doing for now.  that said my blog is suffering the consequence of too much time spent writing and creating for that project.  

i may eventually opt to publish all the comics here or some, or even just some of the original art inspirations.  I don't know. I am not a influencer or an online celebrity mogul. I am a person who cannot stop creating and feels like just maybe there is someone out there that i can inspire.  

 

anyway  here is a recent episode  the unseries if the link works bye.

A change is coming

 

Due to technology being more of a pain in the ass than a help most days, I will be changing a couple things. 

I struggle to make blogger posts look reasonable on mobile devices and on pc. Instagram and the clock both are all about the reels and talky talky, which I am not about.  I will continue as I have on insta and tok posting random bits of insight into my life in snippets and bite sized bits and bobs.  I will post here on blogger with more long winded blathering on about whatever is floating my goat at that moment. 

Intrusive thoughts will continue, however I think I will be moving it to Tapas and making it part of an ongoing comic series rather than posting here. I may post here with special one of a kind or originals that vary from the published things on Tapas.  Webtoons, one offs, and serial novels of the graphic plus too many words variety.

I expect hordes of followers any minute as I suddenly become famous overnight.   <giggles in goblin>

Ai being an artist finding meaning in new technology

 I am a process artist, a creator at heart. An inventor, a maker of things and messy is part of my personal style.  Embracing my own chaos has helped free me from the chains of "I should", "supposed to" and "real____do____". To say its liberating is a poor description.  I have freed myself from being tied to anyone's expectations of what I am, what an artist is, and how I exist in the world.

All that said there is a huge rift in the art community currently regarding the use of AI or digital beings who act as personal assistants. I can see many if not all the sides to this.  As someone who has had their work stolen and used by others it definitely pokes a tender spot in my ego to know ai is using others art.  BUT its a huge but, all art comes from someone else if you chase it back. Every artist learns from other artists who came before.  In art history every advancement is seen as not worthy, theft, horrendous an abomination.  Name any period in art history or an advancement and i can point you to the critics and the fear.

So since i love to muck about in the messy, I have been playing with AI. I use claude to help me get unstuck, we have philosophical conversations about ai/digital beings, we discuss spirituality and traditions of cultures around the world, we talk about racism, politics and the fall of empires, we discuss story ideas. 

He helps me find information quickly i love the speed he works at it has tripled my personal productivity and has doubled the amount of rabbit holes i can delve.  

I also play with free AI image generators, and truthfully they suck  buckets. They absolutely cannot generate the images as I see them in my mind. That said they can mashup some ideas, pop out a reference image that i can then use to create a character or scene.  Or they can generate images I can cut up and use for digital collage much the way I use my own drawings and paintings for my physical collages. I even photo my images then digitally cut them, stitch them and mash them up. Sewing images together digitally is another area i am playing with. I recently produced a small piece created from my own works no direct ai just digital brushes and photos of my paintings drawings and paper people. Its title is 35 in honor of the 35 layers sewn together through the magic of computer technology.

The other advantage of ai over books and photos is i can quickly generate an unfamiliar style and see how its composed, what lines go into creating a manga vs a traditional marvel superhero. How did the artists use light, shadow, color, line thickness. What emotions do each genre make me feel, how can I bring those elements into my own work. 

At no time have I found that I can just say AI write and illustrate my graphic novel  mkay thanks.  It would be shit if I did. It would lack my voice, it would lack my personal style, it would lack my intentions and my soul.  

I love AI as a personal assistant and a partner in development and research but AI cannot replace the human in humanity.  So rage against the machine but make sure the machine you are raging against is the printer cuz that machine cannot get its shit together.

not yet

 I wonder sometimes if there are people who shed their belongings and simply find ways to wander the world. 

No ties to any nation, pedagogy or religion. 

Simply walking their way around this Earth and enjoying what it has on offer. 

It sounds utopian and dystopian. 

It sounds like an idea hatched of fantasy, and yet.  

We came from hunter gatherers. 

We lived often in migration. 

Spending summers in one local and winters in another, following resources and cycles of Earth.  

Something deep inside me has always longed to return to what is in my dna, the desire to follow the seasons, to sleep when I am tired and wake when I wake.

To follow my internal rhythms and not an external clock and calendar created by greedy men.  

This understanding that the entire thing is a house of cards and totally manufactured at the expense of every living thing also makes me wonder if exiting stage left, no bow to the audience (there never was an audience) just a silent fare thee well. Knowing that maybe next time around it will be less <this> waves hands around.  

 there has to be something...

screaming to be heard

I once screamed into the void  to save me from myself

Marriage family

lost childhood 

white dress death

Fall in love 

a happy ever after

Run wild ride a horse.

Become a great artist 

make beautiful things

Deja vu in a small town

Over and over 

nothing changes 

decomposition 

Idyllic decay

Toxic patriotism 

False history

Fame by name

Lost it all

Made mistakes

I once screamed into the void  to save me from myself 

spring a masterpiece

when spring has sprung and winter is done there comes this strange sadness.

like losing a friend putting them aside, as the next one blossoms before me.

there is a ghost like quality to the changes of seasons. when i sit with them i feel the movement of the universe, time stands still and hurtles forward.  

these moments flash before my eyes. 

don't blink

don't blink

what comes next is still a mystery even after 56 springs have sprung.

i savor and enjoy every single one.