Art Therapy
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I’m not a therapy kind of guy. Not because I believe a long bike ride is better than therapy, but because a long bike ride is more fun than therapy. Also, I do this thing where I write my feelings down in a private journal that I then post on the Internet for everyone to see but for no one to find. While my mind is full of ideas and things to try and stuff to make, I haven’t ever really expressed myself fully through art the way, say, professional artists do (presumably).
My very first day at design school, our professor said, “I wanted to be an artist, but it turns out I was too tidy.” I knew then I’d found my people. I’m not only too tidy to be an artist, but, I feel, how to put this kindly, I’m too happy. When I’m not being happy, I’m mostly OK. Of course, I get sad, perhaps depressed, frustrated, and an all-round sour puss. But not enough of a sour puss to want to make a painting about it and tell everyone it’s a picture of flowers when, in fact, it’s a symbolic representation of my unresolved grief over the loss of my parents.
Trust me. I’ve tried to be that kind of artist. There was bad poetry and some truly terrible paintings. Instead of projecting my real feelings, these terrible paintings looked an awful lot like the covers of bad sci-fi paperbacks. “The tiger represents my desire, but the chain around the tiger’s neck is the repression of my freedom. The comely woman in the fur bikini holding the chain represents an attractive woman I saw in a movie poster once.” You know what I mean.
In truth, the thing is, I am pretty repressed. It’s a condition most commonly called, “Normal”. Being too Normal can really hold you back in creative endeavours. We on the Normal Spectrum can often be found to be pleasant but unexceptional in any way. But our Normality is just a mask. Not a creepy Venice Carnival kind of mask, but the shield we put up to get by in this crazy world.
The only thing I’ve found to drop my shield, my force field of normality, is sketching. Even then, it takes quite a lot of sketching before a flow state is reached, and something comes loose like a cat that jumps to life and runs wildly around the house in a state of unknown euphoria. It may not last long, and then it fades away. That phase is outside of time. It is its own country. It has its own weather and phases of the moon. That, for me, is even better than a bike ride, which, as I’ve said, is a good bit of fun.
Like any rational person, I’m feeling a lot of stress from the cacophony of crises we find ourselves bombarded with this year. Many of these crises stem from or are embodied by one man. A single idiot has caused more harm in a year than a half dozen caused in fifty. I will not name him, as the existence of his name on yet another page only perpetuates his presence. How do you gain power over the powerful? You make them small and silly. That’s what cartoons are for. So here is my closure. My control. My anger. My spite. My spit. My venom. Some silly drawings of an unserious “short-fingered vulgarian”. These drawings are my art. They are my therapy.
posted by Rowdyman at 11:05 PM
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