Tag: Punk

  • Body Image Art

    Who wants to switch parts?

    In my art, I create nude figures. Some are more feminine or more masculine in presentation. It depends on how I feel. Right now, I am dealing with a dysphoria swing, and I am constantly comparing myself to fit cis-gay men.

    Because one of my main insecurities in dating seems masculine enough for others. I have a stronger desire to top, and I worry that there is a certain body type I have to fit. Even though I know feminine men also too, I am just being heteronormative. But as a trans man myself, I worry that I have to look a certain way to be taken seriously. So I end up comparing myself to cis-gay men and feel bad about my body. I am still pre-op and very insecure about my female anatomy.

    But I feel like it is hard to talk about this subject because of the fearmongering around FTM bottom surgery in the community and how others body-shame trans men for getting it. Fuck, I’ve seen people body-shamed for bottom growth due to testosterone.

    So how do I cope with all this?

    By drawing naked people.

    When I feel less bad about myself, I draw my body to celebrate it and mark where it is during my transition. But I have noticed that when I am more dysphoric, I paint more abstracted male forms. Weird vent art about how I want to be perceived. Sometimes the genitals are ambiguous, or there are none. Then straight penis.

    But there should be more art of queer bodies.

  • 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.

  • Shapes And Stuff Change, And Move To This Way Or That Way

    How Medical Transition Opened My Creativity.

    I came out at 12, about to be 13. I chopped off my hair. I started binding around age 14. I socialized as a boy. Throughout middle and high school, I enjoyed the arts. I was in the band, a part of the theater stage crew, and took art during my last two years of high school. When I graduated from high school in 2023, I drew in my sketchbook here and there, but I would go months without creating. It was November 2024 that I switched to injections. I had already been on testosterone for about 6 ½ months, low-dosing with the gel method. By upping my dose and using a method that better absorbed the testosterone for me, I was finally getting to cis-male levels.

    I finally felt creative. I started working on projects. I remember being in the craft store, and seeing this large pad of bristol paper and buying it because I wanted to make art in a larger size. This was new to me, as I wanted to work in smaller sizes and draw my favorite duck species. Not only did I start to work larger, but I also decided to go to school for art, starting that January 2025. So I went in about a year on hormones, and I had no clue about my identity with my art. That I just wanted to create. While in my classes, I still had some creativity to make art of my own. I feel the need to make things.

    My theory is that giving myself the right levels of hormones and quieting my gender dysphoria enough to allow me to express myself properly in the things I create, but also in how I dress. I would not be where I am today without HRT. I got to be this creative man. Something that should not be radical but is. Going through puberty knowing I was a boy was hell, and it squelched my self-expression because all I wanted to be was not seen. I never had the chance to explore my creativity because I wanted people to respect me as a man. But now, I don’t care because I look in the mirror and see a guy.

    My art has definitely changed. I have not created fan art in a couple of years now. I have moved to abstraction and switched from digital to more traditional mediums like oil paint. Though I primarily work in ink now. Through my journey of finding my creative voice and settling into my masculinity.

  • 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.

  • Getting To Know Philly

    It is a lot of walking

    The city of Philadelphia has a lot to offer and, coming from a train ride away from northern Delaware, it is a city that I would visit for Phillies games and museum trips. But now, in three and a half months, I will be moving to go to Temple to hopefully get my degree in visual studies at Tyler.

    With being on the autism spectrum, it is important I prepare and get used to how things work. So it is not a shock to my system like my first try. With not being able to drive. (Thank God!) Learning how SEPTA works is pretty important, but it was not too hard.

    Really, I chose to go to Temple and Philly in general because of the local art and DIY scene.

    More of what I want to do is in Philadelphia.

    The walks have been lovely. Been taking in the different architecture. I have just been exploring and drawing in the parks.

    Just getting use to the city.

  • Music Notes Stuck In My Mind

    I have ideas and the knowledge but I need the resources.

    I want to get back into performing music again. It was so fun and freeing. I want to have a good time and others to have a good time. The inspiration came from Atom and His Package, and Chumbawamba. I do like folk rhythms, so I kind of like what Pat the Bunny is doing with Friends In Real Life.

    Really I just need to get my hands on a midi controller and start making beats

    With the research I have been doing it really making me want to make music again!

    I do have a list a instruments I do want

    • Euphonium
    • Guitar (electric and a acoustic)
    • electric bass
    • a better trumpet

    I love how music brings people together and how it builds community. I miss being in a music community and would love to be more active in it again.

  • Music feeds my brain

    I had 69 days worth of hours of music listening in 2025

    How my music taste naturally came to me. Middle school was 2000’s emo and pop punk and show tunes, but then quickly I went into my hyperpop phase listening to Vocaloid and anime openings. To find then discovering Midwest emo in gym class to completely falling down the folk punk pipeline throughout the rest of high school but listening to Will Wood on blast. While trying to feel superior that I was not like the TikTok Will Wood fans but wearing the same hoodie everyday my senior year. To now listening to whatever sounds good to me.

    Recently I have been listening to a lot of Hip-Hop. It is a very satisfying genre to listen to. The music nerd in me has ample respect for how the songs are composed and how the artists make the different samples fit nicely.

    My politics have played a big part. In high school, I was going back and forth if I was an anarchist or a communist or both. Punk songs that were angry towards the government or on mainstream society felt like I had a place to fit as a young teen trans boy. Let us just say I listened to a lot of Laura Jane Grace when I was fourteen. Though a band that has always been my top is AJJ. Their songs have always seemed to fit into a different period of my life.

    But I liked hyperpop, because it was over stimulated and fit the void when I need a lot of sensory input.

    My music taste summed up is does this make my brain feel good, or do I really like how the lyrics flow and is an output for my anger. I am not person that lies when I say I will listen to any genre! I don’t bullshit about that.