Tag: personal

  • Damn My Sensory Issues

    It is a bit intimidating trying to be active in the DIY scene, knowing that I can’t really go to shows. A lot of people say if you want to make friends in the scene to go to a show. Except I cannot go to a show alone without someone with me to make sure I am safe.

    I just see pictures from shows and see all the people and think, “Wow, I would not have handled that.” Having autism is not fun in these spaces when I am very hypersensitive. I enjoy listening to music by myself in a silent room, but a show has a ton of different sounds at once, and I’m sweaty. I end up not focusing on the music. I am very much at the back of the show, away from the action, so I can zone out and stim while listening to the band. When I do go, my battery is drained to nothing, and I am a zombie the next day. It takes a lot out of me.

    But this is if I go to a larger venue. A lot of the shows near me are in small places or house shows. I have never been to a house show because I do not know how safe it would be for me. The show I went to at my local record store was too much for me. I don’t know if I could handle someone’s basement.

    I love the music and art that comes out of these communities, but I feel I cannot really make friends because I can’t attend the events. I could attend for a little bit, but I fell fast before I had to leave. I’m not talking like I am uncomfortable. No, I am talking about a full-blown meltdown with self-harm behaviors. Leaving me at the show puts me in literal danger.

    My sensory processing disorder is something I have to make sure the person I am going with takes very seriously.

    The scene puts a lot of pressure on going to shows and stresses me out because I can’t handle it, but I really want to talk to people about the music. Which leaves me to online forums, but then I get crap for not going to shows. So…

    Yeah. It is tough.

  • Getting The Vibe Right

    I like to compose works that invite the viewer to feel a certain essence from the piece. For example, a playful, eerie, or soft and relaxed vibe. That is the first thing I want someone to say about the piece before they dissect it further. If I fail to communicate that, then I have failed with the piece. The whole thing falls apart. The artwork is total garbage.

    Over the summer, one of the big things I want to work on is effective communication. So hopefully, keep the conversation on topic. My work is more about evoking the feelings I feel. It really confuses me when a different emotion comes up. It annoys me. So that just means I have to get better at creating the right stimulus for the intended reaction. Which just means understanding design principles and manipulating them to achieve the outcome I want. Instead of wasting away and watching brain rot, I’ll gladly spend my time studying art.

    With the image I am using today, I was going for something that felt eerie, somewhat surreal, keeping it to a simple design and color palette. One of the design elements I was using was scale. For instance, to give a sense of distance between the bird and the tree, and to enunciate the important shapes. I used orange-red against the blue to really direct the eyes.

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    Maybe I am just a control freak, or autism doesn’t allow me to see a different perspective because of black and white thinking…

    I really want people to see the work as I see it.

  • DREAMING

    Last summer in Delaware. It is bittersweet. But everyone is leaving, and so am I. Gotta grow up and spread my wings someday. It is not like I am going far, just traveling on I-95 to get to Philly. It is not like I can just take SEPTA down for a visit with family. I will be taking advantage of my time at Temple to make a name for myself. At what, I don’t know yet. Trying to manifest something art-world related.

    In this three-part collage series, I have been doing (I’m going to start the third one this week). Going for a dreamlike movement. A physical look into my mind as I am meditating. As I prepare for a gigantic step in my life. Then I ground myself as I try to focus on my goal. Which is getting into the University of Pennsylvania’s History of Art Master’s program. But I know I need to take my time and chill. That is what these pieces are about: slowing down, falling asleep, and dreaming.

    Recently, I have been trying to incorporate some visual movement in my pieces. A collage I created not long ago is an example of my trying to convey hyper-energy. Right now, with these two collages and the future third one, the goal is to show movement that is slow to the viewer.

    I am trying to take things slow because I want to enjoy my time. That keeps me chill, but still, apart from me wanting to show off that I am working hard, I don’t want to drown in this capitalist world. Like the tortoise wins the race, but society treats young adults like they have to be the hare.