The masks we wear..

I’ve been thinking up ideas for projects to work on and came up with a couple of ideas.

One idea is to work on drawing plaster casts… something that is traditionally a HUGE part of a classical art education. The only problem is that I have no plaster casts…

SO…

I’LL MAKE SOME!! I will work on some classical style statues… faces, busts, torsos, etc. then cast them in plaster and draw them… I quite like this idea as it will develop skills in sculpture, knowledge of anatomy and drawing skills all in one.

How far will I get with my plan? Well…….. Like Picasso said.. “inspiration hits but it has to find you working”… Maybe it will lead to something else exciting, but for now that’s my plan.

Lately I’ve been wrestling with my self and trying to keep my head above the water, so to speak. Things have gotten a bit low lately and I am looking to my art to help keep me afloat. I did a drawing tonight that I would like to share… it has no title and I’m not sure I really need to explain it… but I’ll talk about it a bit.

For the longest time, I felt like I needed to hide my depression for a number of reasons… first reason that comes to mind was that I didn’t want people to think I was crazy or treat me differently. I just wanted to exist as is and maybe try to fix myself without really involving anyone else. I was almost pretending that nothing was wrong. In the state I found myself in, I would think and say things that I wouldn’t regularly… I found that I became aggressive and reckless… my mind was scrambled and my memory felt like it was shot full of holes… I’d mix stuff up and forget important things; often forgetting appointments and letting people down. I didn’t want to feel like at any time I could lean on it and use it as an excuse for irresponsibility and poor behaviour.

Like they say… laughter is the best medicine. I would fight to keep a smile on my face… pushing aside the feeling that I was drowning… lost and alone. It would work at times too… clowning around would keep me focused on the moment and my mind off my problems for a while… like a mini vacation.

I’ve learned a lot about what I was going through and am slowly learning how to deal with it and control it but of all the things I’ve had to do in my life… this is like climbing my own personal Mount Everest. I have a long way to the top still.

So I’m not sure if I can effectively explain this drawing and what it’s specific message is or why I felt the need to draw it… but it gets me and hopefully others talking. If there’s someone out there who can identify with how I felt and is maybe even inspired by the fact that I didn’t give up and am still trying to win this personal battle… then that’s why I did the drawing.