exhausted but alive

I've gone and intentionally fragmented aspects of my online artistic persona this year, all I did was go under the 'potatge' username. Yet by doing so, I actually moved right towards the identity I want to be. No - need to be, in order to feel like a real artist.

As a solo parent, I have feel particularly exhausted on any given day, but it hasn't helped that I stretched myself too thin and offered to volunteer with an organisation that don't seem to really 'get' my work - even my old painterly stuff. 

I don't feel like blogging about all the wonderful ways I feel attached to my 'new' style and new online identity, because I just repeat myself. 

I just don't feel like being criticised by family for why I'd ever use the name 'potatge' over my real name, thus I don't let them see my account. If the only option for wanting to be a real individual is to blot out the naysayers that don't get me, even if they're family, then that's what I'll have to do.

I have been feeling really beaten down by everyone inflicting their perconcieved notions of what good art should look like onto me. I know that the drawing below is loose and wacky, but that's precisely why I love it to pieces. I have fond memories of creating a lot of surreal and wonderful art, at least, I find it so wonderful but I can only hope that some few other people feel it too. But I haven't posted this below drawing out of fear that people won't like it. They won't see it for it's essence, and it's all too disheartening.

I'm trying to however, remind myself that I should care less about what other people think. Trying to fill other people's shoes - so to speak, has been the exact reason I've been so stressed out. I feel like the cortisol is always pumping and my shoulders are always up to my ears. Writing a blog post is kinda a last resort when I feel too anguished. I don't like doing pointless walls of text anymore, and going around in circles writing stuff like this is exactly that - pointless.

Instead, I try to calm down by doing things that more practically lower the stress chemicals in my brain, like taking a soothing shower. Because I've found that just typing around in circles is usually not only unhelpful but makes me look like I'm more of a babbler and a prattler than I really want to be perceived as!

In short, I'm trying to 'fill my cup' with good things and devote all my time to my baby. In the spare moments, I have time for art. And thus that art that I do in that time needs to be focused inwards. It needs to soothe me, not stress me out. In short, I am not doing art for other people.

And you know what, for all the sh*t people say about parents, having a baby has focused my attention on things that matter, in a few vital ways. I no longer have the braincells for bullsh*t, as baby is like a grounding force that everything revolves around. So ironically, having a baby has focused my art-brain where it counts. 

So I'll leave you with this wacky and loose picture which best reflects the surreal figurative art I really want to keep doing. Alright, less typing. (I think blogging does help balance my thoughts a bit though, honestly, it's not that lame.)