dyslexia

The Key to Silence

by artmuse12

A painting left unfinished… I originally started this painting in the summer of 2017.20190105_151123.jpg

If a painting can depict an artist’s state of mind, let’s set the tone of 2017:  The loss of my muse, Single mother of 3 teenage boys, Graduate Student, Working a full-time job, and a massive writing project. I was over extended to say the least.  Trump had been sworn into office and my role as a woman in America felt threatened.

Where does my art fit into this world? I longed for more female produced art. Desperately craving the influence and impact that women have on the art world. I studied female artist and the feminist movement. These artists were angry at patriarchal society, although justified, I struggled with this emotion.

Yes, I am angry sometimes, but I want to heal the energy not continue to rip open the battle wound and pour salt on it.  As the mother of three boys, who will someday be men, how can perpetuate this theme that men are the root of the problem.

How do I balance my semi feminist art and still raise better men, who are masculine yet emotionally and physically strong?  How do you raise men that treat women better, if I can’t figure out how to treat myself? How do I teach them that it is acceptable for a woman or girl to be able to communicate their emotional, sexual, and mental wants or needs? This is a strength, not a weakness.

Frustrated with life and feeling completely stifled, I started on this painting as a way explore myself, my art, my sexual control, and my relationship with my pussy.

I was looking for that euphoric state of mind for clarity and how to really achieve what I wanted for myself.  

How do sex and creative live on this wavelength?

Why does the statement, by our now president, “Grab them by the pussy” invoke so much rage among my gender?

Especially, since in the right setting this statement would have been funny to me.

A woman’s self-pleasure was never talked about growing up and female pleasure was not the center of the discussion. The theme of sex was that men wanted it and it was about them; lay down for him; procreate for him; and all on his schedule or command.

Girls are told that touching themselves is disgusting and that they shouldn’t do it. This mentality surrounds girls with feeling wrong, guilty, and dirty yet, this touching doesn’t feel wrong or dirty. Boys are not fed the same guilt or shame that girls are.  

Porn has become the definition of sex in our society and is a male control field. Boys and Girls are being flooded with imagines of woman serving men and setting unreal expectations of sex.

What if sex was taught as the center of pleasure or as ebb and flow between two people?

The original theme for this painting was about women having the courage to grab their own pussies. I put out a call for a woman to send me their self-pleasuring moments. Once I received a few photos I began to work.

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I was feeling proud of this painting and the overall direction. It was going to be incredible, but the noise from the out world invade. My eldest was mortified by this piece and our already turbulent relationship exploded with a list of all the things that were wrong with me. All of the things my 16-year-old thought of me and all of the things that he wanted me to change in order for him to be in my life.

Now this was not the first time I had been told I was too much and should change, but it was the first time those words halted all of my creativity. I didn’t respond to his demands and we didn’t talk for over a month. I journaled and worked through the tigers and self-doubt that this list sparked and this painting sat on an easel unattended. Mocking me….

I started new projects and let the idea percolate, hoping I would eventually get back to this painting. There were parts of it I like and yet it still wasn’t conveying what I wanted it to.  The list is all I could think about.

I continued to write, and my mentor introduced to half dozen female writers and artists, who were about going inward to fuel change. At this point I had altered and changed this painting and tried to salvage the parts I still liked, but I was still unsatisfied with it and feared it was a lost cause. A deflated concept and it went into storage.20180223_113858.jpg

I moved to other work and read more books by Regena Thomashauer and Lisa Lister.  The best lines were,”Hello, Gorgeous” and “Fix the feminine energy and the masculine energy will heal too” This is the concept rolled over and over in my head.

I had just completed “Fate or Free Will” and was preparing another canvas. But I pulled out this old canvas and brought it back into the studio.

“Heal the Feminine and to heal the masculine”   

Sometimes when I sketch, I will pull a book off my shelf, opened to a page, usually its page 44. I went to line four… “I’ve cultivated a deep and thorough, proactive of listening, dedication, surrender, and responsibility,…”

I sketched and carried these words for a few days… Surrender rolled over and over in my brain… How do I save the center of this painting? How do silence the list?

Why encourage female masturbation?

Why encourage women to honor or worship their pussy?

Why encourage women to touch them self and to find their own pleasure?

Why do I masturbate?

Surrender. Surrender. Surrender, sang in my brain.

To black out the noise was the answer… I lay in bed at night and the lists roll through my mind like a tidal wave.

Recapping the ever evolving “to do” list.

The electric bill was due 11th

Will the baseball cleats from last year still fit?

Where is the crockpot for Saturday?

The dishes didn’t get done, maybe I’ll get up early and do them.

Did I lock the back door?

Did I send that email for work?

The exhibit deadline is the 13th

Pages are due on 19th, I should write more

Look to left and see the empty side of my bed. Look to the right and see the clock… go sleep

Random recaps of lovers and what went wrong

Recap of why the old man at the bar flashed his dick at me.

Why do men only want to sext and not actually meet?

They all want a mother to marry and a whore to fuck.

Is there a happy medium to this?

The words throughout the day, week or month…

Whore

Slut

Mother

The balance in my checking account

Dirty girl

My puss

Powerful

All racing around as if there is a finish line and my hand moves south.

To explore a forbidden land.

To explore the thing that men desire and fear the most.  

As I feel the warmth radiating and fingers find their rhythm the noise gets quieter and the sensation of pleasure moves up my body. I have to surrender and the noise fades to black and for the next 30 seconds to 10 mins I am lost in self pleasure, nothing else matter and the world doesn’t exist for this moment it is ALL me and the sensation of surrendering to myself  to climb the mountain in order to calm the tidal wave and center my thoughts.

Release the expectation of others and regain my control.

Thank you, Gorgeous, you are the key to silence.
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Inspiration

by artmuse12

Where does inspiration stem from?

It comes from all sorts of places, but mainly it should come from within.

I see things all the time that give me inspiration that make me want to produces better clearer art.

The lighting at a concert, golden hour, or the light beaming in threw my studio windows.

 

The sound of the rain falling on the glass table and the flower blooming in my garden.

There are melodies that control my brush strokes.

Lyrics that form shapes and colors.

People that invoke energy;  sensations that are both good and bad.

Art is trying to create balance between words and the images as they come, knowing that logic and emotions have a dance that doesn’t always make sense.

I produce art to answer only my questions;  my art is for my souls, and the hope is simply that someone else can relate and appreciate the story being explored.

 

Change and begin again

by artmuse12

Sometimes when I am stuck I have to begin again…

Stop giving to others.

Find my center and than fucking breathe.

Stop fucking holding it in

Stoo holding it fucking back

Focus on the center;

that breath;

Say I am… and chase the spinning words

Trusting My Voice

by artmuse12

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So last night I sat staring a white blank Word document with that cursor flashing and blinking. I started to write and then I hit the famous delete delete delete.

Even wrote a paragraph on parenting struggles of raising teenage boys, with my lack of male role models growing up.

I asked for some suggestions on topics to write about. I am tired of writing about my personal life, which has more to with being so publicly vulnerable than anything else.

I mean for fuck sakes, I am strong, independent women and I don’t need a relationship. Yet sometimes I want one. Maybe to reassure me that I am worth someone else time and energy.

I have multiple posts saved and waiting to be published some of them are perhaps passed the expiration date to actually post them, or they may not apply and/or were simply fleeting thoughts.

The suggestions of topics to write about were the possibilities or the idea of a parallel of universes, timeline crashing into one another, or perhaps maybe in an alternate realities where we end up with everyone we ever dated.

Would it be Blissful or would it be torturous… What would the outcome be?

What I should be working on is my book.  The one I have been privately writing for the last nine months and I am at the rewrite and editing stage. I am almost at the finish line, but multiple doubts come into play as I get closer to the final version.  You know the doubts, its like a loud judgmental voice stating “that no cares about what you have to say” or that my voice will shame the ones I love.

Fear prevents us from doing and changing…
Yet softly my inner voice says, “Lean in and trust your truth”

Doubt

by artmuse12

I had this dream I was sitting in a room. “I don’t doubt his love for me” I say.

He says, “I don’t doubt her love for me”

A non objective person in the room says “If you don’t doubt his love and he doesn’t doubt your love, then what do the two of you doubt?” Unanimously we respond, “my capability of loving the him/her enough.”

Love Is Magic and that’s what I want.

by artmuse12

Through the things we don’t want we discover the things we do want.

I have loved and lost; confused love with lust. I’ve made sacrifices because I was lonely, scared, or didn’t believe I deserved the same kind of love I am capable of giving.

I want the next man who thinks he loves, to stop and think before those words are said. I want to know if you love yourself first.

Because you have to love yourself before you can let someone love you; before you can love someone.

I want your action to show me that you love me not words. Anyone can say I love you, but it’s the feeling, the energy, and the connection behind them.

Love is sorrow and bliss wrapped up in life experiences.

It’s being present the moments.

It’s laying in the grass looking at the sky.

It’s laughing and crying over the dinner that was burned.

It’s the flowers from the ditch.

It’s the feel your hand on the small of my back.

It’s my finger gently tracing the shape of your body.

It’s the sound of your breath as I fall asleep next to you.

It’s dancing in the raining.

It’s holding each other when explained or unexplained sorrows enters our world.

It’s feeling calm and peaceful while simply sitting on the couch.

It’s laughter, smiles, tears, and sighs.

It’s knowing that sometimes we have to put ourselves first.

Yes, I want to be the Center of Your World and you to be the center of mine while still being individual people.

Love should be easy and warm.  I want to fall in love with a man that is my best friend who I can tell my deepest, darkest secrets and show him the magical galaxy that’s hidden deep inside my soul. Someone who knows that sometimes as a creative spirit, I have to go deep in that rabbit hole, but also knows exactly when helping me come out of it.

And I will do the same for them.

Love Is Magic and that’s what I want.

The last letter to him

by artmuse12

May 10th, six days after he had shown up and feed me the same story, he called and yelled at me for about a post that had nothing to do with him. He told me that she was upset, but with no regard for what his drunk behavior does to my psyche. Below was my response because I didn’t get a chance before he hung up.

We have a pattern and I have tried to break it. All I’ve wanted in the last six months was for him to keep one promise to pay back the money he owed me for one of the many secrets I helped him keep.  I wanted it to be the one thing that he hadn’t lied to me about.

At 2am this morning, he showed up drunk in his usual fashion, singing the same song full of I love you’s and let’s fuck. I stood my ground and logic won over loneliness.

Perhaps it was the healing of a very old relationship that reminded me of the kind of love I wanted. And it’s not this because I deserve better and truthfully so does she.

May 10, 2017 – sent via text

Things I don’t publish, post about and haven’t ever told anybody… Just so you know. 

 

The night I was confronted with this situation.  I ran away from, only to get home to puke in my drive way and cried until my whole body hurt. I didn’t have anyone to lean for support. My friends told me I was an idiot if I believed you. Yes, I told her because I needed it to be over one way or another. That night and for several nights after I cried myself sick and then to sleep on the floor by my window. I couldn’t sleep on that mattress that smell like you. I wanted you to choose me because that would have made it real.

 

But could you ever be faithful?

 

I have cried until it hurts and scream at the universe. The feelings come in waves and it feels like I am drowning. Our experience touched me on a soul level that truly doesn’t have a term and I can’t put into words. I painted and wrote about us because I wanted to understand how we were so sexual connected. 

 

I want to feel that feeling all of the time. The “feeling” is associated with you for now, but with time it will fade into a fond memory. We don’t know if we would work in the real world because we never tried. 

 

You drink too much and I’m a smoke too much. We both like our freedoms. 

 

But in the end, I want a man who only desires me, who works hard and is devoted to my mind, my heart, and my body. As I will be with him. I want to live in bliss and sorrow as a team.

 

I don’t know what you really want. However, I am sure you know your action prove that you want to be where you are. I am hurt, but I will survive. I will grow, learn, and love again.

 

However, I have to write and paint because it’s who I am, part of the person you once said you loved. So you shouldn’t try to take that part of me away.  I know that you have asked me to hate you, but that’s not who I am either. I did want you to hurt, to be in pain and suffer like I was, but not permanently because I’ve seen a part of your soul that you don’t share with many people. That’s the part of you that I want you to nourish and grow.  You have to love yourself though before you can truly let anyone love you back. 

 

I know I shouldn’t send this, but you ask me not post. I write and paint for me and I share it because I work through so much alone that at least when I post it I feel heard and can release it. Too often in this world we don’t feel heard, because as people we listen to respond, and never hear the words that are being said. 

Sometimes Our Demons Win

by artmuse12

I have held them at bay for weeks and months, but this last week they loudly rattled their cages, where they were being held captive. I was barely holding myself together.  I even went to a couple of art shows, thinking it would lift my spirits and I would be able to keep them at bay.

However, I woke up Saturday from a dream that I can’t even remember and cried. The person I wanted to text/call is no longer an opinion for more reason than I can count. The others depend on me to be happy, bubbly, and positive. The demons had broken free and whispered, “See, you have no one, you are alone.”

All those words that had been shouted at me over the last few months true or not, didn’t matter to the demons. The words are fuel for them, whispers that come from nowhere.

You’re not a good mother

Even your own child hates you

You are a failure

No one will ever love you

You are not worth their time

You are not good enough

You were only a sexual objective

Your pussy is the only thing men want

No one really cares

You will always a secret

 

Most of the time I use satire to get through any of my fears, insecurities, or self-doubt. I’m the one with the quick wit. I’m outspoken, confident, and usually self-assured but sometimes life’s just too heavy even for me. Even though I am willing to carry the burdens of another; I don’t want to be a burden. Many times, I accept the blame that is not solely mine to carry.

For years, I wanted the approval from others so I would wear a different mask to accommodate to them.  One day, I looked in the mirror, I didn’t even recognize myself and it was that moment I knew my life had to change.

I faced some of my demons through that process of self-discovery.  However, there are still some that sit deep within my physic.

The logical part of my brain and screamed at me loudly, “get up and fold the laundry. It is just sitting.”

“Paint or clean, get out of bed!” Logic screams.

The tears would pour out and I couldn’t stop them.

The demon mutters “No one will ever understand your pain because it’s stupid. You deserve to suffer.”.

I would even yell at myself to stop crying and feeling ridiculous because I couldn’t make it stop.

It was around 1pm on Sunday, and I was on the countdown, the kids would be home and I would have to pull myself together. I folded laundry, did some laundry. By 3 I finally got dressed and left my bedroom to clean, but continued to cry. The rain had stopped and it was dry enough to dig in the dirt and choked down the tears. I couldn’t let them out anymore. I needed to put the demons back into their cages or release them into the atmosphere.

I had to be the mom, who has it all together. I didn’t want them to know I had fallen apart. I didn’t want anyone to know that I was sad, that I listened to my demons. I especially DIDN’T want anyone to think I was suicidal. I was hurting from not just one thing, but a culmination of several and I needed to live there for a little while.

This is the longest amount of time I have ever given into my demons and/or my emotions and I don’t fully understand these moments.  It was a series of several events that create this physical and emotional break. Perhaps through this flood I have given it to the universe and released all the bullshit we tell ourselves.

I’m still not a 100%, but I will get there one moment at a time.

There is no plan, there is just right now

by artmuse12

I am a planner. I plan out my life. After, I graduated from college, I figured out that the plan changes and that’s ok.

I have changed it, altered and moved it.  It’s a work in progress.

I survived marriage, a divorce, unemployment, heartbreak, and parenting

I learned to listen to my voice, even when no one else understood. I discovered that there are more free thinkers out there in the world.  I wasn’t looking in the right spot or I had become to shut off.

I know lots of things and at the same time feel like I know nothing.

Today, I realize there is no fucking plan, there is just right now!

Creativity and Sex

by artmuse12

I was staring at this canvas that needed to be toned yellow in preparation for this painting on self-touch. Its whiteness mocks me.  I have been sitting on this idea, minimally sketching about it. I have been so lost with school. That I forgot to paint. I forgot the thing that makes sense to me. The NEED to create. I have been reading about why artists have made art. How to stop and really see?  What is considered art?  I have been introduced to feminist artists, which I might be more like then I thought.

I have abstained from sex and men kind of in general.

I had a mean girl’s night.

I have masturbated.

I have read blogs and found people who I can discuss sexuality and creativity with. They seem to understand that these two parts are connected.   They get how these two are so intertwined.

There was a point where I couldn’t focus. I wanted to quit, to give up. I wanted to have sex to clear the chaos that was running through my brain. I want to get lost in something that made me feel amazing.  I even trolled my phone for about twenty minutes for someone to call or text. I couldn’t do it. I finally felt like my heart and vagina have found some common ground.

I was stressed and I want to touch a man. I wanted to feel his warmth, feel his body, his touch and his smell. I wanted to exchange energy and body fluids. I wanted to connect to someone new in real life and not online, not in a text, but letting someone new in scares the fucking shit out of me.

Instead of texting…

Instead of calling…

Instead of letting someone new in…

Right here in this studio, where I had wept over school and life. I laid out a blanket. I turned off the light. The room glowed from the candles that were lit in the window ledges and on the desk. I turned on the sounds of crystal bowls. I laid on the floor, stared at the sketches of my vagina on the wall. There are a few with my fingers, one with a dildo, one that’s a close-up of my clitoris.

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I took a deep breath, little coconut oil and began to message around my vagina, I rubbed my labia in between my thumb and index finger. First, the right and the left. I grabbed my thigh and moved my hand up to my breasts and pulled  my nipples. I grabbed my crystal wand, it was so cold on my skin. I lightly moved it crossed my clit and back again. It felt so smooth and gave me a tingling sensation.

I moaned aloud as I slid this cold hard wand inside of me. I widened my hips and my knees bent pointing outward while the bottoms of my feet came together to make a triangle. I paced my breaths with the in and out motions of my wand that I controlled with my left hand, while I continued to rub my clit with my right index and middle fingers. I arched my back and separated my feet. I pushed the wand out while I orgasmed loudly, staring at the shadows on the ceiling and with tears in my eyes. I lay for a while to catch my breath and to feel my pussy pulsate.

The was an act of self love not a sin to be ashamed of, this is the reason this painting should be painted.

I got dressed and turned on the light and put yellow paint on the pallet. I opened my google music app and selected my paint playlist.  MGK’s, “At my best” played as I made the first circular stroke.

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