Ruminations On An Image

I’ve been thinking about my blog recently, about me, about things. I mean how do you come back from a blog like The Horse That Didn’t Bolt?
The answer is you don’t. Because you’re an artist. Because maybe like a photographer people say that you only take one good picture. Because you begin the second phase of the artistic condition. Where you create something that subsequent artworks are all judged by and never live up to, due to the other connotations of the first piece: it was technically perfect, it was artistically profound, I meant this one more, it had more feeling, it was a complete accident, how can I compete with that? etc…
And even though the mysterious disappearance of your audience adds weight to this; the point is that you keep going, you keep spouting off the same stuff that was fine beforehand, for yourself more than anything; and hope that someday you can do it again. You consider that they are terribly busy just like yourself and you wait.
I know it’s all a terrible thing to say. And I try not to think about it too much. All art has its merits and all that.

You know shopping doesn’t amuse me like it used to. I discovered this today. We were in the car on the freeway heading for a larger town to get something printed; and I was utterly indifferent. Which is very unusual for me; and I hardly had the presence of mind to care.
It’s the toll of the list. 16 days, well 11 now; to get 32 things done. This art project, which I have now grown to hate. It began very well; I wanted to create this marvellous collage of my four faces thing like my avatar, with all different and eclectic found art pieces which correlated with each character all over it. Except I can’t paint, I don’t have the time, I can’t find half the pieces I need, I can’t print it professionally, and the printer at home is an inkjet one so when I applied the top coat to it the colours promptly ran and washed out.
I’d had enough by then. This was the fourth one after the three failed ones I printed at school. I’d used up a quarter of our $70 ink cartridge just printing it at home, a further hour of my time drawing the detail onto it, more still applying it to the canvas and it looked great – then I came along and ruined it.
Then began the good-old cathartic artist hissy-fit, oh like the most tortured movie cliché of the insane genius was I. I flung my arms up in tearful rage. Why?! After all I have gone through, did this have to happen? And it’s not like I was unhappy with what I had (then the calamity and exaggeration) it was fine, it was great – and I fucked it up! I’ve ruined it, my end of year score, my everything! I hate it. I hate it, I hate it! It’s so ugly I could die! What have I done! There’s nothing I can do now! I killed it! I’ll never finish this thing! Arghhh!
Etcetera.
And once you start it you can’t stop. Like the little kid having the tantrum, you abandon yourself to that deliciously taboo line between control and lunacy. You touch it; a mess laid out on the floor writhing and delirious, all emotion and torment. With no beginning and no end, the last shred of reason corrupted and suggesting you use this as an excuse to rip the dreaded thing from the canvas.

The insanity is settling in. I can gaze for hours fixated by the stupidest and most mundane things. The shadow of the moving bus on the steel strands of the road markers makes them look like solid grey tubes of neon, twisted like the stream of liquid from a pitcher…

I’ve been thinking about my image. In essence it revolves around two things: my hair and my breasts.
I got a new bra this week, which makes me feel a whole lot better about things. I’d been looking for a good one for ages; I’m desperately attached to them and particularly hard to fit.
So having a new bra made me feel like making changes. Changing my image, new hair perhaps? A new look for the blog even? I like the way it looks now, but electronic media is so easy to change. Like a desktop background it’s so temptingly easy. I have promised myself as a going away present and cumulative motif of independence that I would get a nose piercing when I move away to Melbourne before Uni. Just because.
You know, I’ve been thinking about it a lot, studying social archetypes and the merits thereof; and it occurred to me that there are only a certain amount of personas you can have as a woman with short hair and small breasts.
You can be a sport nerd, hopelessly dedicated to athletics; and look that way as a necessity and result. Very fit and active and able.
A variation on this would be the ballerina. Thin and trim in black leotard, channelling all the waify grace of a French prima donna. Which would be very nice to be able to do, somewhere close to a model you know. But I think I’m too short and unattractive to be a ballerina or a model anyway.
Or even a career witch, tall and spiky with perfect hair and pinstriped suit. I think you need glasses for that though. I’d still enjoy playing that one.
But all of these require absolute devotion in practice to pull them off. And they don’t fit so well. I’m not committed to sport, ballet, or my career; and I’m too young to really have the latter. They’re quite sexless focused characters, which I have never been.
To that end one could always turn to pretending to be a dyke instead, never stating it, always telling the truth; just letting people make their own assumptions. Or maybe to a lesser extent exuding androgynous energies. It wouldn’t be such an effort, or as high maintenance as the others, but I am a feminine person, I may fit in with the boys better, but receive less of their attention.
And turning to tragic beauty and complete and utter mess would be looking like an addict. Without being one of course; I knew a girl who could do this so well. All gypsy and smeared makeup, she brought the part to life. But I don’t think that would sit well with my parent.
And then lastly the cabaret actress. Which is where Amanda fits in all of this. But I don’t know, I think one would have to take up smoking and wearing red lipstick for this. I wear the lipstick some of the time. I think my voice might just be deep enough.
But for now I think I’ll just start with a new look for the blog, eh?

Peace.


☆