QOTD: “Art allows people a way to dream their way out of their struggle.” Russel Simmons

I always wanted to be the kind of artist that does big, meaningful things. I don’t mean large in size, but large in concept and impact. I never seemed to be abel to pull it off, though. Even when I actually got the point across full force, no one knew I’d gotten the point across. How weird is that? They stand there saying it’s too bourgoise and dull and vapid and so on. A piece about suburbia.  And doh that’s exactly what I wanted to show them.  But not, they didn’t realize.  And I got a rotten review because I laughed at them inside and wouldn’t speak up.

I also wanted to make beautiful things.  That was so not in fashion when I was in art school.  Beautiful was out. Don’t do that. It’s too ordinary. You need to get your point across vividly. Trash was in.  Comb the alleyways for things to pull out of trashbins to make art. Well hell’s bells, that sort of art stinks.  Literally. And often figuratively.  I ended up in one of the “decorative” or “practical” or whatever the other term is arts because I did want to make beautiful things.

And of course there with my beautiful things they thought my tendency to make “pointed” art was odd. But them I told what the point was. Why there and not with the others?  Safer?  Because it wasn’t “real art”?

I painted too. There’s something a bit scary about how I stood in that turpentine soaked environment and chain smoked as I worked with oil paints.  I’m not sure if I was mad or if the school was mad to allow it.  We never exploded though, which is probably a good thing.  My painting was not the least bit decorative.  It was strong.  I was fascinated with light, making light shine through the canvas with my paints.  And showing dreams, unrealities that just touched on reality. Enough to be scary I guess. My first painting instructor (bloody idiot) kept telling me in painting critiques that I needed to see a psychiatrist.  Finally at the end, I asked to see him after critique.  In front of god and all the other students I told him that my mental health was none of his concern, that I happened to be seeing a psychiatrist, and that he should confine himself to critiquing the painting and nothing else because nothing else was any of him damned business.  He said I was crazy and not to ever take one of his classes again.  To this day I have no idea what I did to deserve this treatment.  Why did he think he had any right to say anything about my life except whether my p ainting was good or bad or whatever?  The joke was on him.  I’d already signed up for his class the next semester, because however weird he was, he was also a good painting teacher.  I thought about changing to another class, then decided I wouldn’t bother.  The truth was that I was mad about the man and it was so right to me inside that he kept trying to crush me.  Oddly enough, he gave me highest marks for that class. I deserved them, but I was surprised he gave them to me anyway. On the first day of the next semester, he found me sitting up in the window smoking a cigarette as I always had the semester before. He looked shocked and asked what was I doing there.  I just grinned and told him that he couldn’t make me not be in his class.  He turned away and we never  spoke to each other again.  He did from there on, however, confine his critiques to my painting with no other editorials.  Such a triumph.

I think I was 18 then.  I’d started art school at the university just after I turned 17. Dropping out of high school accelerated things a bit. I found out later that my mother had told the dean that I wanted to go into graphic arts.  The dean told her that looking at my portfolio, there was no way I would, that I would go into fine arts.  Hmmm. I did.  And there, at that school, decorative arts were considered fine arts. Too bad the rest of the world isn’t that way.

Yes folks, WC, Border, everyone, I will talk to the tdoc about my rambling energized head today. I see her in a few hours.  She’s so weird herself sometimes though.  One time I came in, hardly able to stay in my seat, tapping my foot, couldn’t keep focused and she said I was a little excitable and that was it.  I do wonder sometimes if having a DBT perspective makes therapists a bit understated.  But then there’s the other end where they try to through you in the hospital for crying when you are talking about being sexually abused as a child. That whelp was going to throw me in involuntarily for crying over that.  Bleh.  Am I making all this stuff up?  I wonder sometimes.  I don’t think I am. Should I not be concerned about it?

At what point is it enough to actually do something about, this non-reaction to being me crawling up the wall?  I mean, in her eyes.  In mine, it’s before I feel miserable with it or do something weirdly destructive to my life. For her?  I don’t know.  Her reaction last time to my being freaked out depressed mixed was to ask if I wanted to go home and talk some other time.  Don’t get me wrong. I think a lot of her. If all she was going to do was talk to me about problem-solving, going home and talking some other time was the right choice.  I survived unscathed and got over that state, so maybe it was the right choice all around.  But sometimes I feel like I’m howling into a dark well at midnight hoping that the good witch will notice I’m alive.  Anyway, yeah, I’ll talk to her. Maybe I’ll print this out so I can remember what the heck I was thinking.

I tend to forget stuff at therapy appointments. If I feel ok at the time, I forget most of the not-ok moments the week before.  It’s like they have no weight or importance.  Hacked my leg half off trying to split wood… oh that?  Yeah well that was kind of painful, but I’ll get a prosthesis.  I don’t mean to forget. I try to remember. It’s just like it vanishes behind a curtain that’s hard to see through and near impossible to lift.

Crap, my ability to spell and get the right words out there has gone to the dogs.  Edit edit edit. Spell check spell check spell check. I didn’t used to have to do that.  It’s cuz I’m getting old. Nevermind I’m soaking my brain in drugs that do things to my neurotransmitters. It’s just that I’m getting old.

Am I being cranky?  Probably.  I should go do something useful.  Or at least not crankiful.

The word of the day: Crankiful.  Adjective. Full of crankiness; very cranky. Used in a sentence.  Jane was very crankiful the day her car broke down.

This entry was posted on Monday, October 13th, 2008 at 11:35 am and is filed under bipolar, bpd, c-ptsd, days of a weird life, mental illness, qotd, wotd. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.