Reopening wounds

I believe in the power of art.

A friend approached me because she wants to do a series of paintings revolving around gender, and asked me to model for them, and help her with ideas. She wants to show the really negative and dark parts of being transgender, and warned me a few times things will get very emotional, but she doesn't know to what level.

As I've said many times here, I'm involved in a trans youth group in my city, and I'm very forward with information and details. I help new transgirls, I tell them they can ask me anything, I'm an open book. I offer the same to transguys as a courtesy, but for obvious reasons they don't take me up on it for the most part. I'm not an activist, but I like exposing people to trans issues, and reminding the world we're also human, which is something I tend to forget along the way. Something about becoming a monster while fighting monsters.

I'm looking forward to the dark bits. I quite enjoy the negative aspects of a lot of things in some weird way, and so many times in my transition I've felt like I was staring down into a dark abyss, deciding whether to jump or sit and admire the view. It's not all like that, though. There are amazing times when you feel invincible, and like a god.

But this isn't about those times. This is about the abyss. The hopelessness. The loneliness. The self-loathing. The self-mutilation. The victim. The endless questions. I hope things get as raw as she says. I almost feel eager to intentionally open these old wounds that rarely effect me, and let the blood and the tears flow, and let the world see it.

Drawings 2

I rarely draw people

 

Energy

Friday afternoon I got a brainwave about where I'm taking my latest project.

I've been asking my friends to give me their dead light globes, since they're just going to throw them out anyway. But why? I just had a faint idea in my head that I needed (not wanted) light globes for something.

It hit while I was doing my weekly ritual, and I had to lean against the wall because it came on so fast and so strong I felt dizzy. Last night I wrote it down, and really nutted it out, and asked myself questions on the practicality of it and a timeline, drew a few diagrams and how many light globes I'd need. I'm not revealing anything about it here, because friends read this and I want it to be a surprise, but I know I need at least 40 light globes.

This is going to take a long time.

Big Fish little fish

Have you ever seen someone from across the room, and how they carry themselves, and thought I need to be friends with this person?

I see them a lot. Yesterday, I got up the courage and decided to introduce myself to the latest one, to not only be met with a smile, but an invitation to their picnic blanket and 3 hours talking to them and their friends. My small little world suddenly got a lot bigger.

I'd been feeling somewhat limited and sheltered lately. I was soaring because of The Pills, and slowly the momentum wore off. Strangely, there wasn't a crash, but a slow stop. As great as my trans group is (and I seriously love them all) I've been feeling the need to branch out. I've been growing, not necessarily away or past them, but I want more in my life than just the queer/trans community.

This is actually a big step for me. For so long, I felt swamped with what little I had going on. Slowly but surely, I felt myself becoming a bigger and bigger fish.

The people I met are extremely open minded and some seem to be very arty, which is fucking great for me. I've needed something to get my creative juices flowing, expand my mind and learn some new things. I'm going to one of their galleries in the next month, and I'm so incredibly excited I think I might pop.

The cave gets an upgrade

I spent about 10 hours today cleaning my room and rearranging the furniture. It was a huge job, and I was surprised I didn't find anything completely disgusting in here.

I now have much more space to play with, and just a generally better looking room. Not it's not so cramped in here, nor embarrassing.

One thing that was a little strange was that since I was rearranging everything, I kept having to rehide my cane and paddle incase my mother walked by. I made sure to hide my bong in a very safe and secret place before I did anything else, so that wasn't a worry. It was kinda funny with the cane though, first it was behind my draws, then inside a curled up poster, then under my bed, then behind something else...

It's incredibly satisfying. I've wanted to do this for ages, but only recently found the motivation. It feels amazing. It looks amazing.

An interesting thing about cleaning up is that you find all these old things that remind you of people. I'm pretty used to my kink gear bring up memories, but I found some old cards from high school, and some things my friend from QLD made me, and it was really nice.

I even found some old drawings I did from 2003, and some of them are pretty good. In a way, it makes me sad that I never continued with it, but in another way, my style seems to have moved away from lifelike and realistic to more abstract interpretations. I've taken up drawing more lately, which is a really good thing for me. I'll post some here when I feel confident enough.

The concept of knowing almost too much on a subject

In a delightful contrast to my floundering about with makeup, there are things that I know a lot about. Team Fortress 2 is one example, where I know far too much on the metagame and can outclass most players with little effort.

Another example. which is the focus of this entry, is Marilyn Manson. I have all of their albums, I know almost every song back to front, I've seen them live twice, I have his autobiography, I have a lot of videos of interviews he's had over the years, his appearances on talk shows... I know a lot about him, the band, and a lot of the controversy surrounding everything he does.

It's at the point where I'm starved for The New. I feel like I'm near the ceiling of knowledge when it comes to him. This sadly results in me getting bored with the subject, because of my desire (need) to constantly learn, so if I can't learn more about something I move on.

Thankfully, I happened upon a book, Dissecting Marilyn Manson. I thought it might be interesting. At worst it'll be something to add to my library. At best I'll learn a few things about him.

I just finished reading it, and it's probably one of the most interesting things I've ever read.

What I expected was a mostly on the surface analysis, maybe some lyric quotes, something about religion and bam, instant book. What I got was a complete and total deconstruction of MM, his surrounding philosophies, Satanism, drugs, Alister Crowley, Marilyn Monroe, Charles Manson, The Beatles, gothic culture, industrial music, Nine Inch Nails, the antichrist, decadence, serial killers, David Bowie, glam, gender roles, gender stereotypes, childhood traumas, art, horror, sadomasochism, fetish...

The startling thing is that the more I read, the more I identified with him. Reading through the early chapters about Dr Seuss, I got a flashback to my year 12 art project, which was focused on Green Eggs and Ham, specifically bastardising it into a dark and horrifying book. I remember being obsessed with this idea, but I could never articulate why. The contrast is delightful, really. Such childlike innocence, placed next to horrifying images. Does it corrupt innocence, or shed light on the horror?

Either way, reading through the book (the book about Manson, not Green Egg and Ham) I felt my brain expand as I suddenly relearned old concepts, and figured out how they fit into my life. All of the information was there, but it was arranged badly, so I saw it wrong. What I felt was the pieces falling into place.

The biggest thing I got from this book is that it has given me an intense urge to create.

On the verge...

I've been reading a lot lately. Learning. Understanding.

For once I'm not reading comics. For once I'm not playing games. For once I'm not reading pseudophilosophical crap found on internet forums written by 16 year olds. I've fallen back into an old groove I'd forgotten was a big part of me. And it's making me want. Making me need.

I feel like I'm on the verge of doing something, but I don't know what. Whatever it is, it's making me want to create again, when all I've wanted to do for so long is destroy.

Drawings n shit

I have a sketchbook that I carry with me so I can just draw whatevers on my mind when it comes up. No sense in wasting inspiration, right?

I'm pretty happy that I only have one fanart picture in here :D

I also don't have a scanner so this is just taken on my webcam with me holding the book up, sorry about the fingers.

 Fuck yeah Super Meat Boy

For this last one, I started drawing windows and it kinda evolved and took over the page lol