Worth

Hello world! I know, I’ve been slow with my updates. July has been a busy month of work training and transitions for me. Hope you didn’t miss me too much!

I have a confession to make–I’ve been painting a bit day by day, that is…at least as much as I can squeeze in here and there. Lately I’ve had to battle just finding the time and energy to fit everything into my schedule. It’s been tough to carve out regular play time and painting for me when all I can think about is my warm, cuddly bed. >.< You may be wondering why I would have to “make a confession” about painting. Well, it’s because sometimes, I create things that I don’t necessarily end up admiring or satisfied with. It’s a bad, bad feeling that is unsettling to me. And I am hesitant to say that this is something that has happened lately.

You may or may not recall that I had a painting titled “In Search of” from way back in 2015. Well. The story behind that painting was not the best. This was back in the day when I painted alongside some friends at an old art studio. One of them was going through some tough times and was not doing particularly well at the time. There I was, minding my own biz, when all of a sudden, this person became frustrated as they saw my work and picked up a brush and proceeded to make big, red paint marks across my work. “There!” they said, “Don’t hold back! Isn’t that so much better?” and walked away like they did me a favor.

I was aghast. I didn’t move. I couldn’t move..? I looked up at my canvas and didn’t know what just happened. I found myself breathing in and out louder and more effortful. I looked at my other friend and they looked completely horrified. And I don’t remember the exact details of what happened after this, perhaps I just blacked out or don’t want to remember. But at some point I ran out to my car with my phone in hand and clutched it tightly. In a panic, I searched through phone numbers of dear friends far, far from me and proceeded to call and hope for someone to answer at 10PM on a week night. Two or three unanswered phone calls down the list, and I finally found someone who picked up. I told them what happened. How silly it was that I was crying about something that sounded pretty dumb (after all, I was crying about someone painting over my painting?) but felt completely real and painful. I don’t have many people I consider close friends, but the ones I do have guarded with my life. I was reassured by my dear friend that it was okay to feel this way. I went back in to the studio to work on my painting. Like nothing happened–they didn’t think they did anything wrong and didn’t believe they should apologize at the time (but later did). I cleared up the awful marks and painted over them with big, pink and blue swirls and made dark black strokes to distract from the other section of the painting that was affected.

I have always hated this painting.

I don’t have a lot of paintings that I keep with me that I end up loathing. But this one is particularly pisses me right off whenever I look at it. To me, it is a reminder of very difficult times. It takes me back to feeling lost, confused about who I am in this world, my worth, my goals, and what the future holds for me. When I say that most of my original paintings are not for sale–it is because they still hold such strong emotions that I have felt in the past, and I am not yet willing to let them all go. Yes, I’m not afraid to share that I’ve held onto a lot of sadness, pain, and loneliness. At some point I thought that it was just a part of me since it kept happening in sequential fashion without haste. I like to think of myself as a hopeless optimist and a future-oriented person, but I remember what I have gone through and feel that it will always hold me captive at times. Writing about this opens up some old wounds, but I will be okay in time.

And so I finally decided, heck, it would be a waste to just get rid of this painting. So I recently decided to finally face the beast and paint over it. I stopped short of succeeding in ameliorating the pain. I ended up with this.

I still don’t know how I feel about it. And I don’t know why I just recently decided to take this new project on. Perhaps I haven’t really felt all too well about myself these days;  that painting stared and stared at me at my living room floor, and became a reminder of something I knew all too well. When I see this new artwork, I feel like I might not have succeeded in making it all better. Instead, I just feel like I tried to hide it from the world and made it worse. To me, it now looks like what it feels like to YELL maddeningly in colors. I don’t know if I will be displaying this piece…ever. I guess I still hate it. Other people who have seen it disagree.

but then again, these are people I love.

-D