Saying Goodbye: A Work in Progress.
I'm having some trouble saying goodbye, if I'm being honest. Never been very good at it. On top of which, I've perfected, the everything is fine, so well. That I don't even know when I'm upset until it implodes or explodes all over me.
I started work on a sketchbook painting the Wednesday before last. So it's been about 2 weeks... It's a painting, in a SKETCHBOOK.
(The current, in progress, last sketchbook page...)
I know this, intellectually, but emotionally, despite absolutely despising the paper in this sketchbook, I don't want to let it go. Now, see, there's a lot of factors to this, in part, I only feel like I found a good medium to work with that awful paper a short time from now, so almost a year in, every sketch full of frustrations, I'm finally enjoying myself. And it's the last page of that sketchbook. The next is that I'm mid-ugly painting stage in many parts of the painting... chose to do a pretty complex picture, just because that's something that I was supposed to focus on in this sketchbook, and I just didn't. The main excuse being the aforementioned terrible sketchbook for my good old standby medium.
One of the last factors is that I promised a flip-through when it's done. Ah, yes, that good old social media and branding anxiety inducing rat race. Let me stand upon a stage where the whole wide world, could possibly drop by, or sit there without an audience and only crickets singing in the stands blissfully unaware of my artistic struggles. Part of the anxiety of the flip through, is just feeling like logistically, making a pretty flip through will be hard.
Another part of it is, well, a lot is riding on this whole Art Career stuff. Part of me is thinking about the permanence of the internet. How this could become what I'm known for, this one sketchbook flip through. And it's a weird sketchbook. I work in mediums that I never had before in this sketchbook. In fact, I discovered things in this sketchbook. In all actuality this is the closest that I will probably ever come to an art journal, sketchbook. It's not my best work. Yeah, I'm proud of a few things that I've worked on in this, but it's been a constant struggle. Then there's the emotional bits. When my friend died, murdered, this is the sketchbook that I used the most after. The one that through the frustration and all the darkness and annoying existential crisis, and the unresolved feelings that I have about other loved ones deaths; that I worked in. That sort of, kind of, got me out of some very dark feelings. From July to almost October of last year, I didn't work on any art. There was no longer any joy in it. How could there be? I was mourning. I was worrying for her family. Feeling guilty that I hadn't had much to give. I was also about a month, maybe a month and a have into a brand new job.
And just about every breath I took, reminded me that she could not. There are days where I really hate my brain. We weren't that close, we were both too busy to be. She was an amazing co-worker that I enjoyed the company of, we talked art, she talked about her daughters, and she brought me homemade tamales one day just because. She had my back when I quit... and well, I figured I'd get around to hanging out with her again, outside of work. We did not. 2 years passed between working at my previous job, and her funeral. The last time I saw her, alive was probably the day that I quit... it might've been a few days before...
It didn't matter how busy I was with work and school, how little I had slept, how stressed I was, or reasonably upset... a shift with her, and it was instantly fixed. It was hard to be upset around her. Without a doubt, I loved her. I thought her daughters were very lucky to have her. I don't think that anymore. To be the kids of a single parent and lose their mom before reaching 23 and 16... it's cruel.
Anyways, this sketchbook kind of pulled me out of that. Reminded me of the joy I got in the act of creation. The other bit of it is, well, I finally got to a point in this god-awful sketchbook for most mediums, where I found something that worked well and I actually enjoyed literally pages away from the end of it. And I'm not going to buy another one. It was $20+ that I honestly regret spending. I also know that I will probably never flip through it again, or at least it'll be years. So now that it will be done, the experimentation, the art era is over. And it's just more time passing. Actions that I were unable to take, Friendships past, and loved ones gone... and honestly it's depressing. So yeah, I probably won't finished it until this Wednesday... definitely hitting at least two weeks. I'll film the flip through, probably immediately after... Maybe scan in some of the pictures, close it, and it'll all be over.
