PanPastels in my sketchbook
Blog
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Hope
The world is dark and oppressive.
We’re commanded, corrected, contained.
We survive, but we do not live.
Still, we exist. Defiantly.9×12-inch acrylic painting on stretched canvas.
Don’t let the bastards grind you down. -
Beings
The world is full of people trying to tear each other apart.
Much of what we attack in other people is really our own unexamined pain. We criticize what we recognize, often unwillingly, in ourselves. No one is more threatened by another person’s authenticity than someone who has been taught to repress their own.
When we fail to recognize that we are all part of the same web of humanity, the harm we project outward becomes a kind of boomerang aimed, ultimately, at our own most vulnerable places.
I imagine a world where people are free from the pain that makes them defensive, like trapped animals snarling at offered help. A world where every human being is valued simply because they exist.
I want to recognize the unique expression of humanity that exists in each person, and to have my own recognized in return. I want to feel an interconnectedness where similarities strengthen one another and differences find balance rather than conflict. To love what makes you uniquely you, while remembering that we are the same.
We are human beings. And the nature of a being is not to prove itself, but to be.
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Ripple
There is power in everything we say and do. There is power in merely existing.
If you didn’t exist, many lives would be different. Not just your parents’, not just your friends’. Even the lives of people you will never meet would shift in ways unseen.
You don’t have to be extreme to make a difference in the universe. Impact doesn’t require spectacle. It can be subtle.
You can compliment someone and change the trajectory of their day. You can make a piece of art that moves someone to action. You can quietly do the right thing when the rest of the world has run amok, setting an example simply by refusing to harden.
You can exist as your true, vulnerable self, openly and confidently, and in doing so, provide a space where others feel safe to do the same.
It all matters.
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Radiant
Within each of us is a spark. Some might see it as divine, others as a random bit of chaos. It’s fragile, yet infinitely strong.
The outside world may seek to dull its shine, but it persists. Through storms, quakes, and wars, it persists. Through our own self-imposed masks and shrouds, it persists.
If we let it grow and let it glow, it can become a beacon, a quiet encouragement for others to stoke their own flames.
True brilliance isn’t performance. It’s the steady, warm glow we tend within, for its own sake.
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Black Phillip
This is the sweetest, most affectionate jerk I’ve ever met. If I’m standing, he stands on his back legs and stretches for me to pick him up like a toddler. When I pick him up, he purrs and eventually drapes himself across my shoulders like a scarf, making it difficult for me to stand up straight. If I’m sitting, he has to be on me, rubbing his head on me and drooling. He hisses at other cats. If one of them leaves the house, when they return he acts as if it’s a whole new cat that he has to defend his territory against. He snatches clothes out of my hands and eats so fast he pukes. I love this little bastard.
Why do I especially love black cats?
Black cats are apparently the least likely to be adopted. Their black fur is actually camouflage for the dark. The internet calls them voids. In the Middle Ages, they became associated with witches and Satan. They were often the unmentioned victims of witch hunts which involved mass killings of black cats. This bias has persisted in the form of superstitions regarding black cats being bad luck omens.
However, black cats are considered good luck in Japan, Germany, Scotland, France, and on ships. They are beautiful creatures, and every black cat I’ve ever had was loving and sweet. I guess in a way I relate to the prejudice and being misunderstood.
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Thank You Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin
Despite face blindness, I used to be obsessed with painting portraits. I think that the face blindness is actually what made me concentrate especially hard on faces. I’m not sure how other people see and recognize faces. Personally, I’m not completely unable to recognize people, but the more average they are, the harder it is for me to tell them apart. I’ve read that studies have shown that when asking people to choose the most attractive face from images that were digitally generated from multiple faces, the faces that were generated by combining the most faces were chosen as the most attractive. For me, it’s the opposite. If someone looks too perfect, I can’t tell them apart from others and I can’t therefore find them aesthetically pleasing. The most attractive faces to me are ones that stand out by having some unusual feature or arrangement of features.
“There is no exquisite beauty without some strangeness in the proportion.”
– Edgar Allan Poe
Unless they have some other distinction, I often can’t tell actors apart. The worst kinds of shows and movies are ones where the major characters all dress the same with similar haircuts. I have absolutely no idea who is who. I often recognize actors by their voices rather than their faces.
I used to work for days, hour after hour, trying to nail down every detail. Often I’d get so deep into detail that the overall picture was off. Capturing a likeness was extremely difficult. I got better and better with practice, of course, though I’m still not sure what it is about a face that makes it actually look like an individual.
I’ve reached a plateau with that though. I’m not interested in photorealism. I’m no longer particularly interested in realism. If I want realism, I’ll take a photo. Now I’m more interested in capturing essence and feeling. I think this is a natural progression for artists, and I think it took me personally decades longer than it takes many. I wish I would have arrived here sooner, but there’s no point in regrets. I’m happy to have arrived here now. Bit by bit I am becoming more myself.
Progress Snapshots
Sly Stone Portrait, 9×12 acrylics on canvas board -
Burnout
I am autistic, and this is a disability. But what is a disability? If impaired vision is a disability that can be corrected with glasses and the inability to walk can be corrected with wheelchairs, autism is a disability that can be corrected by modifying social expectations.
But as a society we don’t do that. We have two groups of autistics: 1) those who are so impaired that they can’t be productive members of a capitalist society, and 2) those who are able to be productive members of a capitalist society (regardless of the cost to themselves).
What we’re missing here is that people have other things to contribute, like joy, love, companionship, learning, and empathy (yes, autistics have it in droves). And without these things, life feels meaningless. The first group has all these things to offer, regardless of their money-making abilities. The second group has them and some money-making abilities, so they are not recognized as being disabled by society.
And to be clear, it is society that causes the disability by preventing people from having what they need to live their lives with whatever impairment they may have.
In the case of “productive” autistic people, of which I am one, we are expected to take on all the things that neurotypical people take on in the same way that neurotypical people take them on. But what may be automatic and easy for a neurotypical person may require a large amount of thought and energy for an autistic person.
For example, in the past people have been astounded at my ability to pick up programming and software technology as if I’d been using it all my life, while it takes them significant study and practice to get to the same level. What they don’t realize is that the ability I have for that kind of thing is not equal to the ability I have for things like caregiving, social interaction, and sometimes basic “common” sense. Those things, for me, require the significant effort that learning programming does for those people for whom it doesn’t come naturally.
I have never been able to succeed at job interviews* but once I get a job I get nothing but praise for my work.** The problem is that I throw myself fully into it. I will get the job done and I will get it done well. I am efficient, conscientious, hard-working, and reliable. And it kills me.
Any time I have had a full-time job, that’s all that I could do. Get up, work, sleep, get up, work, all for the privilege of being able to do it again the next day. I had no energy left for doing things that I enjoy, and certainly no energy for socializing. I was anxious, existentially depressed, and emotionally dysregulated. I was burnt out.
I got to the point where I had to cut back to part-time, because I have a step-child who is the first type of autistic and requires round-the-clock supervision. May I remind you that caregiving does not come naturally or easy to me. It takes an incredible amount of mental energy, and I cannot anticipate care needs on the fly. I have to be told exactly what to do or I won’t know to do it. This would be true for any child I was put in charge of (like my little brothers when I was young), but it’s exponentially harder (as it is even for neurotypicals) for a child who has special needs.
Unfortunately, part-time work along with full-time caregiving is still a whole part-time job over the full-time jobs I struggled with in the past. So even though I’m working part-time, I’m even more burnt out.
The only thing better than before is my awareness and deliberate effort to minimize what I have to do. I have very little choice in much of it. I have to take care of the kid, because there is no one else to help with it. I have to somehow make money so that we will not be homeless. But don’t expect me to have a clean house. Don’t expect me to cook family meals. Don’t expect me to run errands. Don’t expect me to entertain the kids. Even bathing goes by the wayside if there’s too much else. I need to be alone, with as little sensory bombardment as possible, any time I’m not doing something I have to do.
Doing art, especially the kind of art I’ve been doing lately (on-the-fly intuitive expression rather than planned work), is absolutely vital to my well-being. It’s healing, restorative, and cathartic. If I could focus the majority of my attention on doing art, my mental and physical health would be greatly improved.
Unfortunately, it’s traditionally been the first thing I put on the back burner, because it’s not productive in a society that cares only about money. I know that people make money with their art, but I have not been able to crack that code. I find it nearly impossible to do commissioned art anymore, and I don’t know how to monetize what I do. Selling is another thing that is absolutely not natural to me.
This thing I’m doing now with my art is different. When I start a painting, I don’t have any intention in mind. I pick the colors intuitively and just start slapping it on the canvas however feels right. Then I keep adding and refining until something emerges. I don’t will it there; I just let it happen. And then when it feels finished, I write about the thoughts and feelings it’s brought up in me, and that’s what the painting is about, for me. It may be about something entirely different for you, and that’s awesome.
* The exception to this is the job I got at a company who specifically hired neurodivergent people (on the premise of our untapped productivity), and I’m not sure I’d get that same job today because the job requirements for new hires seem to be a lot more demanding. There’s no more learning on the job, which is my forte.
** The exception to this is a job as a cashier I had briefly when I was in college. You see, so-called “unskilled” labor (there’s no such thing, by the way) is anything but, for me. No amount of training would make me good at being a cashier. I could stock shelves like no one’s business though.
Progress Snapshots
