graduate school

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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An Artist without a Studio

by artmuse12

I took twenty minutes yesterday at lunch to sit in my sort of empty studio.

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Oh lord, I have missed this space!

 

 

I struggled when I first gave up my downtown studio space, but over the years I have created spaces in my home to work and store art pieces.  Recently, I have had to crate and boxed up my supplies, projects, and books stacked them on and around my desk. All pushed against the easel wall.

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Truthfully, thought I could survive construction, but it’s all kind of getting to me. I have been feeling the lack of order for a couple of weeks, yet this week it has hit me the hardest.

This not having a set place to paint and write.  One where I can create and leave my mess until I can come back to it.

Maybe it’s the lack of mid-day re-set. The hour I took before my boys went on summer vacation and before construction started.  That time of day where I could stare at the canvas, the note-book, and/or the garden – quite creative listening.

It might be different if there wasn’t some sort of improved in every room of my house but there is which I am in creditably grateful to have the ability to make these improvements. However, it is wearing on my creative soul.

I tried to paint in the garage, but now it’s to sticky out and well the tools and supplies of the remodel have slowly taken over and it pulls out of my zone.

I have attempted a few spots out and about to sketch and work, but it’s not the same. For me art is not just about the production is the process the movement that runs through my entire body and sometimes when there is the possibility of an audience, that freedom is stifled.

While I sat on the wood floor, staring at the plywood on the south wall where there was once a window. I look the left out the broken east window and envision the glass doors that will soon be there letting in all the east sun. I can see the shelving. The unpacked brushes and books all able to breathe.  I can see where the tracking lighting will go and the sink where I will clean my brushes.20180724_074201

I see the improved wall easel and the future creative moments, with new fresh energy.  All these things I have envisioned while I saved and sacrificed for will be worth it.

And in the meantime, I need to find a place to let loose and make some art.

Art keeps me balanced and without it is like a part of me is missing.

I am an artist in limbo.

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

What you touch yourself

by artmuse12

What you touch yourself!?! – is the shocking response I get from men who find out that I masturbate.

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I am not sure why the expectations of masturbation are so different for woman than they are for men, but they are. Women are shamed for it or told that it’s not okay.

I figure when we encourage woman to self-explore it gives them power within their own sexual awareness.  They discover their likes and dislikes better, and if they can bring themselves to organism, they are less likely to make bad decisions when it comes to having a sexual partner.

I’m currently working on two separate paintings. One with is full of  women’s vulvas and their fingers, the working title is “self-teach” and the other is a grouping currently of two canvases with both a female and a male masturbating, the title is “Watch Me”

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The Self Touch painting is at this pointing, sitting unfinished because I am dealing with the personal shame surrounding my sexual knowledge, openness, and my exposure of my evolving work. I have let it sit on an easel while the rest of the painting presents its self to me. I’ve been reading several books Wet, A Decade of Negative Thinking, and Hot White Truth through these books I have been able to acknowledge my fears and work on furthering my path and desire for social change through both my writing and my art.

Over the weekend I was able to discuss my work and concept with a fellow artist. We discussed my new nickname and the local bar where I have been painting, which is the Pussy Painter.

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However, this nickname has created a buzz it has opened dialogue with the blue collar crowd. They have asked me very real questions about my art, my subject, and my concept as an artist. My favorite question so far has been “Are you just super horny?” No… Than a yes, accompanied by a laugh. Then I go into the theory behind my art.

We talked about the complexity of “Watch Me” that the pairing of the two makes the individual paintings stronger,  combined with the spaces I am working on these paintings, which is on the patio of a local bar makes for an added layer of complexity to the title of “Watch me”

We discussed the reasons as to why I choose to a paint these subjects in public places.

I even had a very gruff man say, although he wouldn’t seek out nude art, especially  male nudes he could say that this was a beautiful painting of a dick.

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The idea behind “watch me” stems from the trend of sexting and dating in 2017.

 

Relationships become virtual and lacks an organic connection. However, there is a sexual virtual connection between the two subjects this idea of strangers sharing this private act between one another while describing what they want the other to do to each other enhancing sexual stimulation both in their minds and genitals.  The climax is also different than masturbating alone because even though it’s self-inflected the desire was created by the interaction  and the experience was shared.  As the artist I get to a part of this intimate exchange the moment of “Watch me” and by taking out to the a public place to create it, I become the part of the subject as other strangers watch me bring out this private moment onto the canvas.  Again, it sparks conversation about self-pleasure, sharing it with others, and the most important part it opens up the conversations on sex positive.

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**all working is in progress

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. 

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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Paralyzed by Fear

by artmuse12

Paralyzed by fear.

If reading and comprehension come easily to you, you may not full understand the paralyzing fear of reading or reading out loud. The fear of being told that you are dumb or stupid, to have teachers and peers make you feel like you less than because it takes you longer to read or process. This was my experience from elementary through middle school and even Jr. High.  It was better in High school and much easier during my undergrad.

Tonight, I am sitting at my desk with my printed out essay that I need to read. Its only 9 pages. I start out pretty confident, after all I am 36 and have learned ways to cope with my dyslexia. I have found programs that make my life easier, things that assist with my writing. I buy dual copies of books in paper and audio this helps retain me as I follow along.

In the event that I couldn’t get a text on audio. I would just read it out loud. This works for the most part until I get into textual work or theory, when I get to words I can’t pronounce and start to stubble. I start to get lost in the unfamiliar words. I completed last paragraph on page 3 and the tears start to fall.

I start the next page. Suddenly, I see myself as that 12 year old working on homework for hours, crying and telling my mom that I am stupid.  I would get frustrated and she would should different ways to work a math problem, and even though I would finally understand it. I would still cry because I knew that Mrs. Ragor would count it wrong because it had not been done her way.  I was teased and told I was stupid by not just my peers but by educators. If I had not had a mother that was determined to help me, I would not be where I am today. It was my hungry to learn and her determination that made us unstoppable.

I continued to struggle through this 1930’s essay that yes is still relevant. I hit record on my phone, thinking I might be tempted to share and exert of my reading, but that may be too scary. Online classes add to these fears and anxieties, it’s all textual and becomes a sea of letters and words that I am drowning in. I read through my fears. I can’t read this in my head because it bounces off like my brain is rubber.

Finally, I get through it, the notes were not taken and it took me about an hour and a half. I sat there the tears leaking out of my eyes as if I can finally release the sea I was just drowning in.

It was at this moment, I sent another message to my professors and asked about dropping a class. I felt like a total failure. I couldn’t do this. Two classes, children, and work. There is no way! It’s too much and the reading has me feeling like a failure. All I have ever wanted to do was write and make art, but maybe it wasn’t meant to be. These thoughts of the things my middle school teachers use to say to me were screaming, so loudly in my head. I felt so defeated in that moment. I hit send on my email and let the tears flow.

One of my professors had responded to a previous email. He reminded me of my accommodation and advised me to submit my documentation.  I haven’t had to do this in years, but I will dig out paper work. He told me about PDF reader opinion “read out loud,” which I had to google.  I pulled up the pdf of the textbook my other professor had sent me. The “read out loud”, was the lifeline I needed last night. It’s not ideal, but it worked!!

After I complete these sections. I was going to scan in the previous essay, then I realized that I had a theory book that was on audio, low and behold this fucking essay that took me nearly 90 mins to read, was on the audio text I have.  I listened to this essay and took notes for another 20mins, it all made sense to me.

It was 2 AM by the time I finished. I sat with my 12 year old self. She reminded me of all the things I was afraid of and I reminded her of how far we have come. Together we cried not because it was over, but she is the only one that truly understands.

 

Every Negative has a Positive

by artmuse12

Negative: I couldn’t get a single book on audio this semester.

Positive: I spent Thursday and Friday ready out loud to myself in funny accidents to get through the pages.

Negative: I should have than work on the video and the paper, but I was not able to focus on it after all the reading.

Positive: I was inspired to work on my book which has a deadline coming up. So, I got lost in this story and the words.  Relived a few life lessons and before I knew it was 1 am.

Negative: My youngest, who is a night owl.  Requested an hour of TV and in my bed at 1AM. I explained to him that I am going to fall asleep and that he is too big to sleep in my bed.

Positive: I could snuggle with him and after 30 minutes before telling him that I couldn’t keep my eyes open.  He agreed to end the movie if I will tuck him in.

Saturday was just one of those days and was not nearly as productive as it should have been, it was full of interruptions.  There are several reasons as to why this weekend was going to be full of changes.

Negative: The older teenager was going to be here and his plans change from hour to hour. Consisting of mom take me here, mom pick me up there. This is not unusual for a teenager, but I was trying to write a fucking paper.

Positive: He re-met and a friend of mine, and for the first time since the divorce he said. “I like him, he seems chill”

I reminded my oldest that this man and I are just friends, and that I have too much on plate to date.  This idea of me letting people met my children is hard for me, even if they are friends.  The fact that he liked someone even if it was a friend was huge because he doesn’t like anyone new.

Negative: Unexpected visitors:

Positive: My wonderful supportive mom stops by and for the most didn’t interrupt me directly.  She drove with me to drop the boys off and even stayed late to watch a movie with them, while working on my paper.

Negative: I don’t like going to the grocery store. It feels like a waste. I understand that we need food to survive, but it mostly feels expensive. It used to give me a panic attack. Now it’s just annoying with the time and the crowds.

Positive: I got to go grocery and my mom made this trip more pleasant. Plus, the kids brought in and put away all the groceries away for me.

Sunday had just as many distractions, but there are ways a better way to look at the situations and find the best part of it.