Missing a friend...

I got some extremely troubling news about a dear friend of mine yesterday:

One of my fellow comic jammers passed away on August 28th, he committed suicide.  He had moved out east for various reasons, both medical and financial, suffered a break from reality, and was not able to ground.  Friends of mine who knew him still don't know all the details of his death, but we got together yesterday for a pint to share stories about him.  We have a couple of celebrations of his life coming up.  He loved karaoke, so one will be a karaoke event... another will be a comic jam event dedicated to him.  

This is a very sad time, we believe that if he had stayed in Toronto, he might have known more supports in the community, he was rather isolated in New Brunswick.  From what I understand, he only had one family member he was regularly in contact with.  I knew he was having problems, but it sounded like he wanted his distance from others, so I didn't reach out, trying to honour this.  Now I regret it, though I'm not sure what I could have done, not being in the same province.

Rest in peace, dear friend.  I have been saying prayers for him in the hopes that it can help his soul on his journey.

-Saraƒin

Camp...

Camp is one of the themes in a lot of my work.  Having very little training in the arts, aside from specialty high school art training and one year of art college (and the occasional continuing education class), I am just not the finest craftsperson when it comes to any artistic discipline.  But I do have high concept ideas, a ton of creativity in me, and enough knack for colour and line that I can pull off something effectively.  I may never impress the big leagues, but I am doing ok as a name in indie culture.  (Of course, it would help if I was a better self promoter, but I feel so beaten up by life, I tend to shy away from attention, unless small.  I like to wait for my ships to sail in, I don't go seeking them - too shy, too afraid of disappointment.)

Camp might happen when a director is so ill-trained or awkward that something becomes delightful for its own sake, or because of how crude it is - we may like it for all the wrong reasons, but it still becomes an important piece in pop culture.  (This is not always the case for camp, but there is something to be said about things that are awkward delighting us.)  In my case, I had a high concept idea with Asylum Squad, but not the highest level of skill in writing and art... I insisted on making it anyway, because I had something to say.  I consider it a form of camp, but also a kind of interesting satire that holds the reader's attention with its absurdity so that the satirical message can be delivered.  Not having a lot of money is another reason I couldn't promote it as much, and publication has only been here and there, when I could afford it.  It is a property I hope to do more with someday, but right now I simply sit with it, reprinting it whenever I can.

When I was a kid, I had aspirations of being a big career artist.  I am a bit sad that, at 42, it may be a dream deferred - it's as though I got somewhere with my art, at least for a while, but not where I wanted to be at this point.  I don't want to go back to art school - I feel my mind is incompatible with that environment, and I don't personally desire to go to any of the local art schools anyway, when I hear stories from their dropouts.  Something about everything going digital really puts me off, and I desire to avoid computers where I can, when it comes to illustration.  As mentioned before on this blog, perhaps with the creation of AI art, we may groan more about digital art than ever before, and long to go back to the canvas.

I don't know where I'm going with art down the road, but right now I'm going to stick to gallery openings and illustration.  (I long to get off of Latuda, because I believe it stifles me a bit technically and creatively.)

-Saraƒin

Afterthoughts...

I was really sad yesterday... today, maybe I'm slightly better.  I read on the roach spraying note that to see roaches post treatment is normal - I'm just hoping that there's not tons in hiding, bound to multiply.  I alerted my building, asking for help, if needed - I'm trying to calm down about everything.  I have to tell myself - at least these are Canadian pests, not the kind of giant insects you see in warmer climates, they're not bedbugs or mice (knock on wood) - I just got a good 10 years in this unit with only one other roach sighting, and I thought the peace would continue.  To go through this makes me panic, having lived before in inadequate housing, knowing several kinds of pests at once.  It's not like I'm made of money, and can just pack up and move, if this project gets overrun by pests, becoming a dive.

I'm also just contemplating my relationship to medicine in general, it feels pretty hopeless.  It seems like doing an average job with a client is fine by the standards of the Canadian medical world - in psychiatry, it's "diagnose them with whatever you have to in order to get them treatment", it has very little to do with actual science.  I suppose they're relying on the average mind to be naive enough to buy it, but after the damage it has caused my life, I just can't stomach it anymore.  Getting a psychiatric diagnosis, in this region at least, ain't like Gregory House - it's more like ordering a Big Mac at McDonald's.  I now know the psychiatric hospital to be a place about abuse, social control, and humiliation, and little more.  My case is rare, requires a deeper analysis, I am still on that damn waiting list for an autism diagnosis, and I don't expect anything but shoddy treatment in the meantime.  This, and dental abuse as a child, leads me to fear how other levels of medicine might screw me up, down the road, as the body breaks down.  I would sue if I could afford a lawyer, just so I could know a bigger nest egg in the end, if and when I require pricey dental work that isn't covered, a chiropractor, or some other medical expense not available unless you have coin.

I am not in love with money, but it sure is nice what it can bring, especially when one is in need.

-Saraƒin

Misery...

Today, I am not feeling very good - I am dealing with a major pest control problem, and feel very hopeless about my situation.  Last year, I contemplated the idea of giving myself 10 more years before deciding on suicide,  now it would be more like 8 1/2 years before I would make that decision.  I doubt I could get MAID, because I am getting healthier, but there's always taking the long bus out of town, like Enid at the end of "Ghost World".  Life feels pointless, insulting, and desperate sometimes.

I panic, knowing I am unlikely to know a better life, because of how impossible it is for most low income people to know one anyway, let alone a middle aged disabled woman without a higher education, barely any nest egg, and an art career that went nowhere, because no one understands my art, and I never became technically brilliant.  Perhaps these roaches are just a reminder of how bleak things will continue to get as I age, in an economy that will destroy my demographic, with no hopes of any silver lining.

It's strange to believe in God, but not believe in love.  Love never protected me from hate, it never protected me from crimes against my body, these crimes weren't validated by psychiatry as reasons to diagnose me with PTSD (until my scientist friend agreed with me, and God knows, I don't even know what psychiatry did with the SCID results).  Psychiatry loves seeing me as foolish, they don't think I have insight, they have been one of my biggest abusers, and I long to walk away from them forever.

I just had a spray down of my unit, and it was ineffective.  It probably means they're everywhere on my floor, and there's no way of stopping another tenant from letting their unit get overrun, so my hands are tied - I must now spray again, the preparation is extremely stressful for me, as stressful as moving.  I am having a weak time right now - I self injured again, not knowing where to put my frustrations, I had only just solved the noise problem above me, and now this.  It seems I can never know peace and quiet, I can never know stillness from abuse, I am so tired and alone with what I suffer.  I am forever waiting for the next shoe to drop, while mediocrity rules.  Who's the next loved one to die?  When will cancer set in?  What's going to destroy my tiny nest egg?  I can't take this anymore.

I want to believe that this too shall pass, but today I feel weak.  I hate my life, I hate the loneliness I feel with everything I have to deal with, and I hate that the only game in town to turn to, psychiatry, wants to treat me like shit. 

I am not afraid of dying anymore, but I am afraid of the humiliation of aging in poverty.

-Saraƒin

Upcoming October art show: "Woman, Man, Myth and Magic"...

I am also planning on putting some art into this show, coming up in October.  The curator said he would take "The Brazen Bull", as it is in theme enough, and there are a few occult imagery pieces that might fit in this show as well.  I might do that Hecate piece I was thinking about making, if I get to it.  I am really looking forward to this event - I bet the art will be great, considering some of the minds I have met in the local art scene!  (I may drop the price of "The Brazen Bull" a bit lower, to try and move some more pieces - again, this depends on what the curator feels I should do.)

This coming Monday is art drop off day for the Super Yummy Show - I'm glad I got two pieces done!  I can't wait until the opening!

-Saraƒin

New illustration: "Holy Communion"...

This is likely my second contribution to the Super Yummy Show coming up soon, at the Super Wonder Gallery.  These are kind of "fan service" type pieces I might do now and again, for a quick buck, if anyone wants it.  I decided there is no way I would ever do a comic about this character, because of the hatred I would get from religious audiences who do not understand my whimsically dark sense of humour.  But maybe just some silly little piece, here and there, as an illustration, why not?

I'm not sold that I nailed the structure here, but I like the colours - I am a much better artist when it comes to line work and colour than I am with things like perspective and structure, that's my downfall.  Hopefully, with time I can improve where I am weak.  I felt extremely addled for many years because of my spiritual emergency, I am trying to catch up again as a technician.

-Saraƒin

The Super Yummy Summer Exhibition...

Here is the art show that "Dionysus" is going in - I just wanted to share the flyer.  I haven't started the next piece for it yet - I hope to get one more done, as mentioned.  There is also another show coming up at Super Wonder Gallery in October, witchy themed stuff, that the curator said "The Brazen Bull" would work well in.  I might try and do a new piece, perhaps one of Hecate, for that show - there's also my piece about the 7 Directions that would work for occult/esoteric art.  Good to know I have some events coming up!

I just spray varnished "Dionysus", it's drying in my bathtub.  I'm penciling what the next illustration might look like, for now.

-Saraƒin

New illustration: "Dionysus"...

It's so funny that with the Paris Olympics opening ceremony, Dionysus would be a subject in the news, I had already started on this one - I guess I'm cutting edge!  lol

I missed the deadline for the "All You Can Eat" Northern Contemporary gallery show, but there's a similar food themed show happening at the Super Wonder Gallery, so I am submitting this one to that show instead, along with perhaps one more piece.  (I think I am going to do another Sister Penance pinup, one with her holding bread and wine - I decided to call that pinup series "Vatican 7", suggesting a fictional Catholic church from the distant future.  It's not going to be a comic series, just an illustration series.)

This is acrylic and paint pens on canvas, 16 x 12" - I might price it at $300.00, but I have to talk to the gallery curator.

-Saraƒin