kodecy

This is actually…fun.

November 15th, 2022

Instead of working on muting colors and turning them into chromatic greys like I thought I would at the end of my last entry, last night took a different turn. I keep getting out of bed relatively late (although I do keep waking in the very early morning, as well. Today, it was before dawn).

Because I’ve found that working on study and assignments first and then rewarding myself with dedicated time for Art, greatly eases my stress, I’ve been working on my XML coursework in the daytime. (I’m feeling better about that now, by the way. I think that the Art practice is increasing my resilience to stress.) This does mean, unfortunately, that by the time I’m ready to work on Art, it’s either afternoon or evening.

I don’t entirely trust my sense of color under artificial lighting; but what doesn’t change under artificial lighting is my sense of, “value,” or of the differences between light and dark. So, last night, instead of trying to work out color dynamic issues under artificial lighting, I drew.

This time, I worked on Fabriano Mixed Media paper. I really love this paper. It withstands graphite, erasing, pens, and Ecoline liquid watercolors, at the least, and it’s nice and hard. I haven’t gone in heavily with the Ecolines — I (nervously) tried them a long time ago — but from what I see online as regards this paper, it looks promising.

Unfortunately, my normal art supply outlet has stopped carrying this specific variant of paper. I’m pretty sure the pandemic and economic issues, have to do with it.

I’ve also reviewed the Material Safety Data Sheets for Ecoline Liquid Watercolors. At least since 2016 (which is when I largely stopped doing Art: my program ended and I went back to Library School for a couple more years), they haven’t been toxic. This means I should be able to go ahead and use them without ventilation.

I remember reading some time ago that the fumes could cause a drop in blood oxygen levels; but seriously, the memory is vague, and may have been a dream. It was a very long time ago, and was related to my concern about aniline dyes.

How do they make Ecoline so transparent, that is? Most other liquid watercolors at least have (or have had) sediment!

I also read that aniline smells like rotten fish, so I should be able to tell if I’m working with it. Realistically, I have no idea if Ecolines contain aniline dyes; it’s just a fear I’ve had. I’ve also had times when things have been mislabeled as being hazardous when, in reality, they didn’t merit the warnings. That could factor in, too.

In any case…I’m both trying to be easy on myself in getting back into drawing (thus, I’m trying to give myself permission to draw things I know how to draw, when I haven’t drawn in…I don’t know how long), and also trying not to harp on myself too much for drawing something that comes relatively easily.

Something in me is pressuring me to dive into the deep end as my first act instead of wading into the shallows, when I haven’t swam for so long, that I’m not even sure I remember how to do so. Of course, though: I’m not going to drown if I can’t draw something. At the most, my ego will be bruised.

I can also tell, now: there are some things I haven’t forgotten. Muscle memory — or visual ability, whatever is employed in visualizing an image and working out visual problems with the execution of translating it into reality — these things, I haven’t lost.

Contrary to how I used to feel: in drawing the above, I actually found it fun to see things in my mind in 3-D, and then translate that to a 2-D form. It used to be hard and annoying, but now (having gone through several rounds of Figure Drawing) it’s more of a challenge. It means breaking something down into its underlying arc of motion and assembling underlying forms (beginning with the bones), before adding in flesh and then clothing.

(Of course, there are also all the surroundings to draw; I didn’t get into that, last night.)

I do tend to still start drawing figures, with the eyes. I’m trying not to be too hard on myself, about that. There are times when the gesture of the figure — their overall arc of energy and flow — is more important than where the character is looking. Right now, though, I’m letting the eyes suggest the internal feeling of the character’s pose, and the camera angle say something about my approach to that character.

As I begin to move more thoroughly into drawing gestures, though — whole-body representations of embodiment, feeling, emotion — I hope my drawings will end up being less stiff, and more fluid. Even if life isn’t really like that, stories (here I mean to reference Sequential Art, though this also applies to Fiction) aren’t, at heart, literal representations of reality. That’s not what stories are for.

What they are for, or what they do, is a good question, and one I don’t have the energy to consider, at this time. It’s a big question; a culturally-dependent question; and one I may be able to find an answer to by a combination of my writing practice, reading about Creative Writing, and taking classes in Creative Writing. But I can’t put it into words, now. I’ll need to come back to it.

In any case: neither Creative Writing nor Art, are about reproducing reality. There are bigger things at play. Even with Hyperrealism, the artist chooses their subject: it isn’t random. That choice of subject is a place where the artist has agency — the ability to say something larger than just making a photocopy of reality for its own sake.

Anyhow, I’ve recently been looking at foreshortening and rendering figures in space. I’ve had to. And right now, hands and hand positions are a significant challenge (which give further insight into the character’s state of mind). I’ve been able to work with this, in what I’ve done so far. It just has to do with breaking down the body into its component shapes and volumes, and understanding that we don’t always see everything flat-on (if “flat-on” actually exists in a 3D world).

It also means it’s OK to forgive myself for starting off by making a figure’s eyes relatively giant, when what I’m actually after is less obviously cartoony. The image I’ve posted above, I’ll need to revise in order to shrink the near eye back to an only slightly enlarged form. I can see where to work, next: just take the upper lid a bit lower at the corner. I can also see where I might want to round out the skull at the hairline on the right.

It’s possible to re-draw things like this; just annoying when the face is established with the cartoony eyes, and then has to be readjusted to have a more realistic underlying skull. I think that the more I can move away from the eyes as a focus, to the whole body and being and gesture as a focus, the easier it will eventually be to keep my own desired proportions in my drawings.

But then, I’ve been developing my style, for…a long time. For me, when I can look at the cartoon and recognize in it a person who might exist, or a person who inspired the cartoon, that is a place I want to be.

Anyway — I wanted to scan that image before I worked further on it. Up next, after final corrections, are inks: I can do this with or without natural lighting. I will lose this original framework after erasing, though, which is why I went to the effort to scan it, in the first place.
Mess

November 14th, 2022

Initiation

I was actually able to open the rest of the Liquitex Acrylic Gouache pots, on the 12th. I kind of wish I had asked someone to photograph my hands, after I was done: it’s one of those things that will make you feel like you’re actually an artist, to have your hands covered in spots of paint which you’ve tried to wipe away, but have mostly just succeeded in smudging more spots of paint onto yourself from a dirty paper towel.

Yes, I did immediately wash my hands after opening all the pots (it wasn’t worth it to wash my hands after each pot, and I didn’t have the foresight to wear gloves). I also clipped all my nails today, including the ones which I just barely scraped the stains out of, as I’ve started regularly flossing again (thus putting my hands in my mouth).

Of course, I later got fountain pen ink all on my hands, which is usual for pen maintenance. But this post isn’t about that.

Toxicities and safety

As I have said before (not necessarily here), I am grateful to my past self for having thought ahead about toxicities. I have apparently succeeded in avoiding the use of paints with known toxicities, at least recently (with the Liquitex Acrylic Gouache). Liquitex seems to be good in this regard, as a brand…and I found I have some nice colors from them!

I was sure not to buy anything last time around that carried a Caution Label (as versus an ACMI AP Certification)…which eased my mind greatly. (Note that Golden Paints uses a different system, explained here. They state that the absence of known toxins does not equate to complete safety.) It’s fairly impossible to paint without getting your hand wet from the paintbrush — unless you use gloves, and then the gloves get wet, and God/dess forbid you get paintbrush rinse water under your glove…

Particularly, anything with cadmium or cobalt in it, I’m not using at this time (though I think I have a Cobalt Teal Blue and Cerulean Blue Chromium in my watercolor palette: nothing really compares); I’ve also tried to stay away from Chrome Oxide Green: chromium is another metal to watch for.

And yeah, sometimes a color, like Chrome Oxide Green, just isn’t to my mixing taste. Straight Cobalt Blue, is one of them. I may also be lucky that Aureolin isn’t one of them (this is Cobalt Yellow…which is also rumored to be fugitive [hit Ctrl+F on a Windows device to search for “PY40” on that page; the entry starts with, “potassium cobaltinitrite”]).

There are some other pigments which might just cause sensitization (like Nickel Azo Yellow, a.k.a. PY150 [to the best of my memory]) — although I’ve tried Nickel Azo Yellow (through a dot card from Daniel Smith), and it’s beautiful. In the category of beautiful and causing irritation, I also know about bismuth orthovanadate…or PY184. It’s gorgeous in the form of acrylic paint and has excellent mixing properties, but will apparently irritate any part of the body it comes into contact with.

I did have a very old acrylic tube which used bismuth orthovanadate: the specific paint is no longer being made. The only reason I know it works so well? I tested it before I discarded it. I just had to decide whether its prettiness and utility was worth my anxiety, in replacing it (I’ve had to replace almost all of the heavy-body acrylic paints I bought before 2016: they age when unused, and get gummy).

Hitting home

I pay attention to this stuff now after having had a bout with what I was told by an ophthalmologist was conjunctivitis (it felt like extra loose tissue in my sclera [the white of the eye] that would wrinkle and itch when I shifted my eyes) — which may have occurred because I was brazing a type of brass which could cause that response. (I found this out on inspecting the Material Safety Data Sheets [MSDS] at the location from which I had gotten the brass.) I’ve been told that “conjunctivitis” only refers to an infection called “pink eye” and can’t be caused by chemical fume irritation, but the Internet disagrees (there are too many supporting sites to list, here).

Anyhow, I haven’t had that issue in a very long time. If I hadn’t experienced it, I would likely know much more about silversmithing, now — but I decided that particular craft, wasn’t worth my health. There are a lot of chemical risks, and physical risks and hazards, in Silversmithing (even at core, there are sharp objects and fire). I actually didn’t feel safe in the class. This is the reason I left.

I’m a color nut, so Painting is a very…appropriate outlet, for me. Moreso than Smithing, and moreso than beadwork (the latter of which, in my specialization, is limited by what colors of glass beads can be made). I’ve also known most of my other Art instructors to be much more careful about pigments and Art materials, and the environment.

I think the problem lies more in my psyche than anything else. After all, all I have to do is use a glove and not wash paintbrushes out with my bare hands…or ever touch the surface of the painting.

God/dess, maybe it’s not.

Maybe sometime in the future, I’ll consider working with more hazardous materials…like when I know what I’m doing, better. 😛 Or accept the risk. Or wear a glove. Or when I get my tendency to worry, under control (something I read said that worry was anxiety projected into the future…ah, that was The Anxiety Audit: Seven Sneaky Ways Anxiety Takes Hold and How to Escape Them, by Lynn Lyons [2022]). The thing is: it may only be, “anxiety,” if it isn’t warranted. If it is warranted, and isn’t excessive, it might just be called, “caution.”

Warrant

The problem I’m dealing with is, “baseline high sensitivity to anxiety,” + “risk factors that are real enough to be acknowledged by the Art community and the wider society.” That is: the risk isn’t all in my head. I just notice it more, because my brain is sensitive that way.

I know at least one Art teacher who had breast cancer and is still alive; I knew an artist who died from breast cancer at a very young age; and I’ve known Art teachers who have known artists who have had cancer (I don’t remember the types; only that the specific teacher I’m thinking of, admonished us not to blow pastel dust up into the air [it’s not good to inhale], and not to spray aerosol fixative inside the studio [ditto]. Both of those things happened, anyway — reminding me of high school Chemistry).

I’ve been warned about the case of Jay Defeo and “Deathrose”, where the artist — if I’m recalling correctly — died of lung cancer, which may have been caused by layering and repeatedly carving away white paint.

There are a number of things that could have gone wrong, here. The use and carving of plaster; the use of titanium dioxide as an opaque white pigment; or possibly (I hope not) Lead or Flake or Cremnitz White as a pigment; could all have been factors. So far as I know, lead-based pigments are mostly used in oils, these days. Toxicity in oils is a very large reason I opted to take painting classes using exclusively water-based media.

At this stage, Titanium White — or rather, the pigment titanium dioxide — is known to be a factor in the risk of lung cancer by route of inhalation. Although it isn’t toxic per se, airborne Titanium White — as a free dust — is an irritant to the lungs and is currently classified as a possible carcinogen.

“As a free dust,” meaning the stuff that the students were likely blowing up into the air from the pastels, in my Drawing class (see above).

“Wait,” you say. “Isn’t titanium dioxide used in cosmetics?”

Yes. Yes, it is. So is talc, when talcum powder is said to contribute to the development of cancer when it is contaminated with asbestos. (Of course, who tests the talcum powder before it is used, to see if it has asbestos in it? That would seem to be the crux of the matter, right? That nobody’s testing?) But that’s an entirely different rabbit hole…

Calculated risks

I’ve got to decide whether or not to take calculated risks; whether to make myself temporarily uncomfortable, in an effort to move forward. To keep myself safe, I realistically should have been wearing gloves, the other day. However, I feel relatively okay about it. The exposure is likely negligible, given how soon I washed my hands; the fact that there were no known toxins in my paints; and how rarely I would have done anything like that.

Sometimes, as well: wearing gloves can contribute to exposure by reducing one’s dexterity and making simple tasks, difficult. This is what happened when I got exposed to Cobalt Yellow during a watercolor painting class: I was trying to get a tube of Aureolin open with gloved hands.

The glove reduced my ability to feel and grip the tube, wrapping itself around the cap. I eventually took the glove off to try to open the tube with my bare hand. It wasn’t until I had done so that I realized that the paint had already oozed out of the tube (despite apparently being sealed shut) and spread all over the tube itself because of the glove: thus, all over my now-bare right hand.

I couldn’t feel it because the temperature of the paint was too close to the temperature of my hand; and at the time, all I had to get the stuff off of myself was my watercolor rinse cup, which was already dirty. To make it worse, I was out in the field and didn’t know the location of the nearest sink.

All I got was some mild itching (i.e. “dermatitis”), but that does mean I was exposed to the cobalt. You do not want this to happen: cobalt is toxic.

It’s essentially not easy, if it is even possible at all, to work with Art materials and avoid all health risk. The risk comes with the practice, just like I’d risk myopia, carpal tunnel, and spine issues, if I worked at a computer eight hours a day. Or, like I’d risk my near vision if I worked with tiny beads, a great amount of the time. Or how I’d increase my risk of adult-onset diabetes if I regularly ate a bunch of candies and sodas. Pretty much, life is risky.

The fact is that we can mitigate some of the known and avoidable risks, even if we can’t (or choose not to) avoid all of them.

Color mixing

In any case: Liquitex is fairly good about taking known toxins out of their paints. They also have a “Cadmium-Free” line which is designed to mimic the performance of cadmium pigments, without actually containing any cadmium. These are actually really nice paints! The drawback I can see is that the mixtures are proprietary, so you don’t really know what’s in them; but apparently they aren’t categorized as toxic. (At least this goes for the two I bought: Cadmium-Free Yellow Deep, and Cadmium-Free Red Light. They make a really warm, brilliant orange, together.)

I mentioned last time that I had an extremely difficult time getting the seals off of two of the Liquitex pots (one of which had the interior, donut-shaped seal [that’s supposed to stay there] somehow stuck onto the seal of the paint pot itself). Thankfully, most of the rest of them were nowhere near as much of a trial. I’m…fairly well impressed with the range of reds I was able to find: from Quinacridone Magenta, to a pinkish “Primary Red,” to an orange-pink “Cadmium-Free Red Light.” The middling, “Primary Red,” is not a lipstick red, to my relief.

Reds are one of those interesting color families that have more variation than expected…but then, that could probably eventually be said, for all colors.

I had actually started with a “Primaries” set for the Liquitex, then expanded because I could see that I was kind of past working with single primary colors. The “Primaries” set includes Primary Red, Primary Yellow, and Primary Blue, plus Emerald Green, and Black and White. The, “Primaries,” given here are more like, “Typical-Idea-Of,” though they do lean cool, for my taste. The Blue is close to a Sky or Cobalt Blue (neither of which I tend to enjoy using), while the Yellow is a basic…inoffensive, middling yellow. I love the Red, though; it does lean slightly violet, but not as much as Quinacridone Magenta. Their Emerald Green also leans bluish, which can be an issue if you’re looking for something that looks like chlorophyll.

If I really were at a beginning stage, this set would have worked; the thing is, I’ve been taught to use a split-primary palette. This includes a cool and a warm tone of each primary color. Because my definitions of “cool” and “warm” are a bit confused (apparently the color wheel is not evenly split between “cool” and “warm” colors, and I didn’t understand that violet was considered “warm” until several years after I must have been taught the definition), I’ll just explain the following in terms of color bias.

When you choose your primaries, the primaries chosen will really…affect everything. If you have an orange-leaning red and an orange-leaning yellow, they often make a warm orange (if they mix well, that is. I’ve been on the lookout for a nontoxic yellow pigment which is good at mixing yellow-leaning greens, for years…which I’ve mentioned in at least one past post). If you have a violet-leaning red and a violet-leaning blue (like Quinacridone Magenta and Ultramarine Blue), you get a relatively clean, strong violet. If you mix a green-leaning blue and a green-leaning yellow, they produce a relatively clean green.

If you then mix the colors with the colors directly opposite them on the color wheel, you should get first, muted colors; then, chromatic greys…which is what I’m looking forward to trying out, today. Yesterday, the 13th, I was only painting out the basic straight hues and simple mixes, as these paints are new to me.

Are you hesitating?

The thing is…and this is my analytical/fear-based mind speaking: I’m not sure how this is going to work out. I’ve tried to optimize for the most intense secondary colors…but the thing is, you don’t have to mix Ultramarine and Quinacridone Magenta to get violet. You can also mix Quinacridone Magenta and Deep Turquoise, and you get a redder purple: even with the green component of the Turquoise, the color isn’t strongly muted. Mixing a violet with a less-violet-leaning red, tends to turn out something closer to eggplant, in hue.

(I usually think of reddish violets as “purple” and bluish violets as “violet”…I don’t know how common that is.)

Muting, or the tempering of a color’s intensity, happens when you start to mix colors with biases other than the color you’re aiming toward, or when you intentionally mix a color with its complement (across the color wheel).

I even somehow got an ink blue out of mixing yesterday (close to an Indanthrone Blue color), though my mixes are somewhat of a mystery for me, as I don’t tend to write down what I’m mixing. When you can add upwards of five colors into one mix, and don’t remind yourself of their names as you’re continually adjusting that mix…trying to remember, gets tedious. Active experimentation is easier to manage — at least, in the moment.

The thing about getting paint colors is that each additional color you use, introduces a large number of new mixture possibilities, especially when you’re starting with a split-primary palette. This happens while everything you mix with your basic, chosen primaries, happens to coordinate and harmonize on some level. At a certain point…it becomes clear that using too many different pigments can actually be more of a problem, than a solution. The thing is, which colors you choose for your primaries, matters.

Principally, you can skew the selection in favor of either strong violets (involving blue and red) or strong oranges (involving yellow and red); but getting both at once? I’m not sure I’ve tried it…and I really don’t know what’s going to happen — particularly with complex mixes — when I do.

Of course, David Lloyd, interviewed in Creating a Life Worth Living: A Practical Course in Career Design for Artists, Innovators, and Others Aspiring to a Creative Life, by Carol Lloyd (1997), states that, “failure is built in.” (page 23) An artist has to be open to failure, in order to progress. So maybe today’s work, can be about embracing potential failure. 🙂

Kind of like the failure I got when trying to photograph yesterday’s work, in the intense blue light of early morning…

Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with any of the paint brands (or books) I’ve gone over here, today, nor have they compensated me. I purchased the materials I’ve written about in this post, with my own funds. I am not a medical professional, and nothing in this post should be taken as medical advice.
Maybe I should be doing Art?

November 10th, 2022

So…I have gotten to the point of realizing that maybe I really should be doing something with my artistic sensibilities and skills. The below started out as a test sheet for Caran D’Ache Technalo water-soluble graphite pencils, on Canson Mix Media Paper. As you can see, it…developed. I’ll shrink it down so you can have a hope of seeing it all on one screen:

This does have a Brightness/Contrast and Black & White filter applied to it: night photography means that otherwise it has an orange cast and appears dim.

This is another time when I just started something, and — to my surprise — when I keep at it, something comes out. I’m being surprised by this in all areas of my life, right now. It does make me wonder how much of my creative process is simply about engagement (and trust in myself).

I did this today as a reward for re-engaging with my XML homework, on someone else’s recommendation. I didn’t get the right answer on that homework, but what I turned in follows my own internal logic (which did not mirror the computer’s logic). At least it made sense to me, and it was a valid file, which is better than I left off, yesterday.

I question if my heart is in it.

Last night, after having done a few sketches (I haven’t posted them yet; they’re essentially comic art), I realized that I do still have artistic skill, and that maybe I should follow that skill…

I’m looking at working with the art supplies again more in the near future, and putting less energy into the beadwork — the latter of which, looks like a relative dead end. Developing skills in drawing and painting (at which I already have a good start) just seems to carry more possibilities. (I mean: I could be a storyboarder, or a background artist for animated works, or actually do that Graphic Novel work that I’ve wanted to, or become an Illustrator, otherwise.)

I also opened a couple of pots of Liquitex Acrylic Gouache (gouache is opaque watercolor; acrylic gouache has an acrylic binder which means it won’t lift off the paper, later). They were so difficult to unseal (my thumbnails are not that strong) that I ended up only working with two colors: Cadmium-Free Yellow Deep (which I really love), and Quinacridone Magenta. D and I literally had to use pliers to peel one of the seals off!

Because of this, I didn’t experiment as much with the Acrylic Gouache as I would have liked: but someday when I’m OK with being gloved up and using pliers to unseal things (and possibly spraying paint on the table and floor…and myself), you can bet that I’ll be trying those out, more!

Now that I think of it, maybe I should open them, outside the house…in throwaway clothes and an apron and a face shield, or something. The good thing is that I’ve made sure I have no toxic colors in my set. The potential mess, on the other hand…that’s entirely different. The Liquitex also has a chemical smell, but it isn’t a big deal to me, so long as the paints don’t carry a Caution Label.

Today I worked on a pre-primed Blick Canvas Pad (I wasn’t sure what to use; acrylic gouache is a hybrid between watercolors and acrylics), though I also have some other surfaces I can try out. The paint is really, fairly gorgeous: if you like even, flat dispersion. There was a drop in intensity after it had dried, I noticed; but I was mixing an orange-leaning yellow with a blue-leaning red, so the dulling could be expected (orange plus blue are going to mute anything they’re mixed together within). I used a synthetic watercolor brush on the firmer side to apply it, and that was fine (just don’t let it dry in there!).

I had been torn between Liquitex Acrylic Gouache and Holbein Acryla Gouache…it may be worth getting both, if I find I like acrylic gouache, generally. (I know Holbein from their other watercolors…both their transparent watercolors, and their regular gouache, are pretty good.)

I’m also surprised at how closely the Caran D’Ache Supracolor water-soluble colored pencils mirror the intensity of paint — it’s something I noticed offhand, today, when seeing them both at once. If my memory is correct, the Supracolors mimic the color range of Neocolor crayons (they’re made by the same company), but they liquefy much more nicely, to my sensibilities. (I got rid of my Neocolor IIs — water-soluble crayons — because I didn’t like their texture, once wet [or even after they had dried]. I might have been able to modulate that with lighter pressure, smoother paper, and more layers, however.)

The Supracolors really put the Derwent Inktense and Derwent Graphitint pencils to shame, which I feel relatively confident in saying, even though I gave up on the Graphitints after testing two of them out with water and a brush. They sounded like a good idea, as muted, tinted graphite; but they don’t liquefy anywhere near as nicely as the Technalos. The Inktense pencils, I’ve had for a long time, and they’re fine (especially when you want permanence: they won’t move after they’ve dried, even if re-wet), but they need a light touch and multiple layers. Supracolors, on the other hand…they’re just very soluble, and very intense, as I recognized again, today.

Bright colors can always be dulled down; brightening a dull color, though? That takes some skill, but it can be done (try mixing magenta and yellow to get red…or adding an intense color to a dull one with the same underlying and harmonizing tones, which will strengthen the common tones. [These things don’t always make sense]).

It’s been a while since I’ve allowed myself to get back into drawing (as versus painting), though to be truthful about it, until this week, I hadn’t allowed myself to indulge in either, even though I have the tools and media and substrates. Why?

On some level I had been thinking that my art didn’t matter and wouldn’t go anywhere. But I did just get through reading Beth Pickens’ Make Your Art No Matter What, where she asserts that it does matter; that we need vision for the world. That, plus just coming off of a museum visit…it helps.

Not to mention that in my capstone class for my AA in Art, someone did tell me, “please don’t stop making Art”…
I know what this is.

November 9th, 2022
I have, again, been experiencing substantial anxiety…which in this case feels like nervous energy and intense activation. This has translated to going to sleep and then waking up a few to several hours later: being awake enough to do things (mostly, digital things), then going back to sleep, and being able to rest. On Monday, I woke up around 3 AM, and stayed up until about 8 PM. That’s just…a red flag.

That early morning, I finished reading the book, Make Your Art No Matter What: Moving Beyond Creative Hurdles, by Beth Pickens (2021). Given that when I got back into it, I was less than halfway through, and I essentially read it in two sittings altogether, that would seem to be an accomplishment — but like I said earlier, it’s an accessible read.

A thorough review of the book will have to wait (for now), although I did enjoy it. There were also several times I felt myself clearly reflected in the text. I am, for example, a person whose quality of life would suffer if I did not write…which I hadn’t so much connected with an artistic temperament, until reading this book and seeing that I share that with others whom the book is aimed towards. Not working primarily with the Visual Arts, doesn’t mean that I’m not included in a “creative” category.

Learning more about what I want to do

I look at my writing production, and I see I want to write more; a lot more. The clearest indicators I have of my writing practice are my blogs…but there is the point that I do not want all of my writing to be blog posts. It’s just easier to track, here. If only it were as easy to track my writing which I intend (someday) to publish!

That’s easy, you say: just keep printouts. Right? Or a private blog with some obscure domain, and password-protected access.

I do have the materials with which to write: plenty of them. The problem comes down, at this point, to organization: where do I start? Literally, what do I write on? Do I begin with an outline, or “pants” it? (Given my past experience, I think starting with an outline will help, even if I end up changing that outline 6 or 7+ times by the time I’m done.)

I have at least two stories which I can begin working on. One of them originated in a visual context, and I’ve hoped to explore it in a visual context. I’ve actually purchased some blank A4 paper for this, which responds very (very) well to soft pencils, for roughs.

The other story’s characters have been with me since I was a young adult. I’m able to look back on that now as a maturing adult…and I think I’ve found a way to move forward with it responsibly. (In a way I couldn’t as a youth, that is.)

I’m thinking of working on the latter, first: Monday morning, I was able to write out a full page of notes on how to update it and make it personally relevant, for this point in my experience. I really didn’t expect that much to come out when I started writing — I pretty much crowded the page, and wasn’t sure whether to start another one.

Right now, I’m looking at developing the latter work as a piece of prose, as I have been trained to write Literature — and I believe I may be able to do more justice to it as Literature, than as Sequential Art.

I also look at all the things I have and want to read, and see that I want to read, a lot more. Given that I can’t do everything I want to do, maybe I want to have my life revolve around reading and writing, and keep the beadwork (and writing/publishing about Jewelry Design) as a hobby? Or develop my strength in Visual Arts, as versus beadwork?

Of course, I also need a job, in there…which is, in effect, a largely different topic. Over the course of my life, I’ve grown very much to appreciate Library services. But, even as much as I appreciate others doing the work, being a Librarian isn’t necessarily what I want to do.

I’ve been trying to talk this out with people: it is very apparent that I got into Librarianship without full knowledge of what the work entailed. I’m not certain at this point to what extent there actually is even work I want to do, in the Library field. Want to do, and am capable of doing, let’s say.

This XML class (which I’m taking in preparation to become a Metadata Librarian) is very difficult — especially for someone without Computer Programming or Database experience. My frustration with it is coloring my view. I am not a person who has much experience with struggling in academia.

However, looking back on it, everything I’ve done in Library and Information Science which verged on Computer Science, has been really hard for me (HTML/CSS, excepted; but that’s simply markup, not programming). I forget sometimes about having gotten lost in database architecture and SQL; or my horrendous experience in Fundamentals of Programming; or just wanting Intro to Computer Science, to end (which it did, after my stress and tension sent me to the ER with a back injury which made completing the course, impractical).

Particularly where I’m asked to download way too much onto the computer that I work to keep secure, I get edgy in the first place; let alone when I don’t understand what it is that I’m downloading. Or when my computer raises security warnings because the learning tool is acting like a virus.

Maybe I just have trust issues around that: or, likely, I understand (or overblow) the risk. Yes, it’s possible to back up everything on a regular basis, and I know I should be doing so as a matter of course; but I still don’t like being asked to risk my security.

So I’ve been reading, a lot.

What’s surprising me is that a lot of what I want to read (currently, at least), doesn’t overlap with what I want to write about. National social patterns have me curious about larger, global patterns; and the best way to learn about the latter (and thus have a little wider context for the former) is to seek out materials about them.

That is also, by the way, exploration of the wider world in an effort to narrow down where my interests lie; if I want to write nonfiction, or teach. It probably would also enrich my fiction writing, by showing me how people can be different.

Avoidance

From what I did early Monday morning, I’m pretty sure that a lot of my motivation for reading, had to do with anxiety and avoidance of my coursework. I am not sure if I’m dealing with, “burnout,” but I am really tired of this XML class. We only have three weeks to go, meaning I likely only have four more chances left to fail.

I have been working on the course — most recently, today and yesterday — because I know I have to, if I don’t want to totally fall behind and deal with the potential repercussions.

What are the worst of the potential repercussions?
1. Getting an Incomplete and having this purgatory extended.
2. A blow to my ego when I see the final grade.
3. Risking my ability to continue to take classes at this institution (though the teaching at this institution varies in quality, and in reality, I have a cushion of good grades).
4. Jeopardizing my acceptance into a future postgraduate program because of a blotch on my record; thus, endangering my future ability to teach at a four-year College or University. Right now, that’s still a viable career option with no hurdles to cross (other than financial).
That’s pretty much, it. I already have my degree, so the pressure should be off. Still, I don’t think my psyche would handle it well if I just ruined my shot at learning and getting through this, because of my emotional state (at this point: anxious and frustrated; tired, with a little anger).

Engaging or not, is my choice; and I have to deal with the consequences, either way. Aside from a potential emotional breakdown or giving in to the sudden urge to destroy my computer, there are no downsides to doing the work — or, at least, trying to.

Maybe I should frame it as trying to do the work, not as getting the work done. The latter assumes I’ll be successful, which is more pressure than I need, at this point. I seem to have the concepts, but I don’t have the vocabulary, and I don’t have the syntax. And if Metadata Librarianship is primarily this type of work, it’s pretty obvious that I don’t want to do it.

Reading seems to have been my way of calming my anxiety. Of course, I ended up buying a lot of books on my all-nighter, which is — also — significant.

Distance education is better than no education (at least, when the students actually learn — sometimes they don’t, and I know this); but it really does not compare to being taught in an actual classroom, where you can ask questions, hear others’ questions answered, and collaborate in study groups. Classes should be more than reading and doing exercises on your own (like you should understand what you’re doing, in isolation, because you read a chapter about it? Seriously, that’s no way to teach, or learn).

When I step back and look at this, I can see that I’m dealing with reading, writing, Academia, Libraries, and maybe possibly Publishing, as routes of potential employment. I might also be able to do something with my Art skills, but in reality, it has been so long since I have drawn or painted. (Beadwork is something else.)

But hey: maybe I should flex those muscles? I have the paint, I have the pencils and paper and inks, I have the brushes and pens. And I’ve been encouraged to set the Art aside as a reward for engaging with the XML class; as versus avoiding the XML work, through my art.

And yeah, I may have to turn in this last assignment messed up. Do I know what I’m doing wrong? Not really. But I tried. I engaged with something that is indisputably difficult for me. That matters…
A new method

November 4th, 2022

I’ve stumbled upon a method of drafting blog posts which will likely come in handy, in the future.

Last night, I wrote a rough draft of the post which became, Yeah…Maybe I Kind of Love Design, today.

I did it pretty much without beginning with, “Today, I did something,” (or rather, I caught myself: I’ve had to re-edit too many of those posts, once I passed the midnight mark). I knew I didn’t have any photos and I knew I wasn’t going to take photos until I had daylight, again. I honestly didn’t know if we were going to have adequate light today, or more rain (the rain is welcome, by the way); nor did I know whether I’d be able to collect all the photographs. I’d intended to post on Friday or Saturday night, which I’ve found to have the best viewing hours.

Essentially, that first draft took up four pages. I saved the text, printed it, set preliminary Categories and Tags, and went to bed. Today (I think? — I was up before dawn and then went back to bed and awoke again in the afternoon sunlight), I went over the rough draft and edited freely — by hand. These edits probably happened in the morning, before I got chilled and went back to sleep.

Because my original draft had been saved and printed, I didn’t feel the need to preserve my divergences into multiple tangents. In the past, I have tended to preserve these tangents for the sake of flow — and largely as an artifact of the WordPress editor — but it is unnecessary when I know the material is archived, barely related, and later can be put to better use.

I read it over, identified the different logical sections, deleted large sections which were otherwise irrelevant to the core reader (like a digression into wirework, when the subject of the post is arguably bead-weaving). After I had done various line edits to the text itself, I also identified where photographs or other images would enhance what I was trying to communicate.

Before the sunlight went away, I took several photos for each suggestion I had brainstormed — plus more. The large majority of them didn’t make it to the site.

I ended up using all of the suggestions except one, which was a simple size comparison of two types of round crystal beads. These essentially glowed in the sun, against a black velvet background: probably overexposed. I may tinker with this later, but what I got, didn’t look very salvageable.

I also realize that most of the people who may see that post, probably won’t have the background to know what I’m talking about. A difference of about 0.5mm in bead diameter in a 4mm bead, probably won’t matter to most people…but it does make a difference, in beadweaving. It means that one bead is 7/8ths as long as the other, with adjustments to the volume that I don’t care to calculate.

I realize that, in the last post I made especially, I get into a lot of specifics and minutiae which are likely only apparent to someone who is pretty deeply into the craft.

There really isn’t the same type of community of makers on WordPress as there is elsewhere. Because of this, I might as well post what I want to post, and let people find it…or not. I can make the site and the blog what I want it to be, that is.

After I had edited and uploaded my photos, I added in captions, alt text, and went back a few times for a thorough editing-after-editing. I also deleted the Tag which no longer fit my content, after the edits.

I’m pretty sure that’s all there was, to it. I posted before dinner, and now am posting about my process. Not too bad for a 24-hour period!
What I want to do?

October 31st, 2022
M has been telling me again that I need to figure out what I really want to do, after this class is over. I…hadn’t been giving it much thought.

Looking back over this blog, though, I get a couple of ideas. The thing is, most of what I want to do is creative in nature; and it works optimally with getting out of the house. The latter is something I haven’t been great at, over the last two years. (There are reasons for that, and not all of them are COVID-related.) I’m also not sure how much income I can derive from it, realistically.

There are three things I can see…that I could be really good at.
1. Writing for publication
2. Writing and illustrating a graphic novel/comic/webcomic
3. Developing beadwork patterns for distribution
  And the fourth?
4. Cataloging Librarianship: it’s unlikely that I’ll be able to find a job in this field, in my area, with my amount of experience, anytime soon.
Corresponding with this are a couple of things I’d need to do. There are skills I would be using which I could apply in other areas of my life:
1. Reading: I could work at a bookstore or library and interact with people to help them solve their information needs. Working at a bookstore gives me considerably more freedom than working at a library, though it probably pays less, with less opportunity for advancement — though that’s just something I think might be; not even an assumption.
2. Art: I could work at an art supply store and be their go-to-person for comic/manga/graphic novel illustration…of course, I’d need to actually read more graphic novels, to be fully competent at this (my earliest exposures were manga which I couldn’t read, due to their being written in 日本語 [Japanese language]). It’s fairly evident that a full-blown Graphic Artist might be better at this, than I would. A lot of this is computer-based, now, as well…
3. Beadwork: I could work at a bead store…which feels very much safer than working at a jewelry supply store (crystal and glass are relatively inexpensive). I also know a lot more about beads, than I do about gems or gold; I’m fairly decent where it comes to Sterling, Argentium, and various base metals (brasses, copper, the pewters…I almost got into bronze, in class, but ended up not casting). The drawback here? Gemstones have lore associated with them, which I see as essentially an ancient marketing ploy which I might be asked to help perpetuate. But then, what do I know.
4. Graphic Arts: developing instructional materials for beadwork calls Graphic Arts/Desktop Publishing skills into play.
5. English Teaching/Tutoring: I have a fairly strong command of the English language. Although I don’t necessarily (at this point) know technically, how to explain what I know, I can help people break sentences down into key components, which often shows why a sentence works, doesn’t work, or says something other than intended.
6. Illustration: I could employ my skills at drawing vis à vis the practice of Illustration for commercial publications (menus, etc.), without using the format of Sequential Art.
7. Writing: of course, I could always be an Administrative Assistant — though that requires answering the phone, which is hardly ever comfortable for me (I have trouble deciphering the television and people around me sometimes; and being on the spot as the only person who can answer [or hear] the query, is…not easy).
8. Writing: freelancing. Topics unknown, as of yet; may depend on my interests, and what I’m reading. This seems as though it could be very enriching for everyone involved, if I’m reading non-English works!
There are also some things that I want to do, as regards the future:
1. Learn Japanese language: which I should be doing, if we move where we were thinking of moving. This opens up Japanese-to-English translation as a potential job path (ideally, through the written word). Depending on the intensity of study, it may also open jobs in East Asian Libraries; for example, Cataloging Librarianship in East Asian Libraries.
2. Refresh my Spanish language: which is possible; and with effort, most probably will happen before I can substantively move forward with Japanese language. This also opens up Spanish-to-English translation, and potentially Spanish-to-Japanese translation and vice versa. I am more comfortable with picking up español by ear, than I am with Japanese language, at the moment. The hard part is finding decent stuff in Spanish to read; although from what I can see, there’s definitely an underserved market (if not many of them), here. If I had bookstore experience, I could open a Spanish-language bookstore, eventually.
That sounds good enough for a brainstorm for tonight!
The freshness has worn off

October 30th, 2022

It’s amazing, when the thought of getting back to writing is what gets you out of bed…and then, once awake, you realize how many things you have to do. Particularly, in this case, this XML class…which, frankly, I don’t want to engage with, anymore: too much of it is self-taught. We’ve been given problems which we have to do our own outside research, to be able to solve. But it’s far too late to drop the course, and Withdrawal would likely need to be for dire reasons. Given that, maybe I should just be glad to suffer through it.

The good point is that I only have six weeks to go. I’m almost certain not to get an A, at this point, due to the fact that I thought I had an extra week to deal with last week’s homework, and I didn’t. And, okay, I realize that going down to around 90% credit is not a big deal, in the scheme of things; but that means that the most credit I’m likely to get amounts to a B+, if I otherwise excel, with all other options being below that.

When I would need to keep a 2.0+ GPA in order to remain enrolled, this would be a huge deal…although I did just look it up, and a 2.0 is a straight C. I suppose that does mean that a D or F is permissible, especially with a cushion of As and Bs. As I tend to be an A-/B+ student, maybe I don’t have to freak out so much? I’m still in my normal range, and about 2/3 through the semester.

There is, also, the fact that this is a Master’s level class: apparently, it’s supposed to be difficult.

I’m just not totally understanding the current material (maybe due to missing helpful cues in the questions), and that has me a little panicked. It’s rare, that I don’t understand the material; though as I wrote earlier, this isn’t unusual for me and technical courses (with the notable exception of HTML5/CSS3: though that’s markup, not programming). This is just the first time I’ve recognized the pattern. It does mean that maybe I really don’t want to get into XML/RDF, like I thought I did. At least, not now — or, not hard-coding the back-end of a resource discovery and management system.

I have a tendency to really dislike back-end work (e.g. setting up websites, dealing with ports, SFTP traffic, etc.), where it comes to needing to utilize Computer Science skills…largely, because I don’t know what I’m doing. On the Web, there are consequences to not knowing what you’re doing. Utilizing the front-end of a SAAS, is fine. It’s where things come to databases and developing the architecture that constrains data input, that I get torn up.

I can input the data; what is really annoying me is setting up the conditions to input the data. We’ve even been told that a lot of what we’re studying has, most of the time, been already set up. I can see the use of having these skills in troubleshooting someone else’s messed-up code, but there is the question of how often we would be using them. Then there is the “designer” part of me that looks at the .XSL files and groans, “why can’t we do this any better?” Particularly, “why can’t we do this any cleaner?”

The favorable thing is that I have already graduated, so I don’t have to worry about this impacting my GPA and imperiling everything I’ve accomplished. What is hanging in the balance, potentially, is whether I’ll be able to get into another Master’s or Ph.D. program, after this (though with the way I’m feeling now, it will be something I either want to write and/or teach about, in the Humanities; thus, my ability or inability to understand things like NoSQL databases probably won’t come into play). This means that I’ll need to at least try to keep my commitment, through the beginning of December. I can’t just blow it off. Even if I really want to.

But like I said: nearly everyone is struggling, in this class. When I wasn’t struggling, it was because I’d learned the material, before. I’m not sure whether this being hard on everyone is due to the difficulty of the material, the difficulty of the readings, the format of the readings, and/or the Prof’s teaching style. (Because everyone is struggling, we now have a landslide of exercises. I’m not sure that approach is going to work.)

I am hoping that we tackled the hard stuff early on…the problem is, then, having to go back and review the hard stuff so that anything more advanced can be accomplished. When…the hard stuff was hard, for a reason.

I’ve been trying to reconstruct the last half-week where it comes to my health, and I’m having considerable difficulty doing so (especially when I effectively lost the majority of yesterday to sleep). The point is that I’ve been having clearly somatic effects, due to my level of anxiety– whether you look at my back tightening up so that I could neither write nor type on Saturday night (it’s currently Sunday night), or the anxiety attack I had on Wednesday night (adrenaline rush; fast, shallow breaths; heart palpitations; weird blood pressure).

Earlier, I was still dealing with a slight backache, though I think that specific pain originated from writing by hand on a surface which was too high. That surface was my desk with a calendar and laptop on it. The ridiculousness of this, is not lost on me.

How tall does the desk have to be? What is this desk made for, if you can’t use a computer on it without a lift and footrest, and you can’t write on it? Is it for intimidating visitors? Is it just made for huge people? When did I get this desk? High school?

Ugh.

But yeah, that’s just merging into finding more things to complain about. Luckily, these things don’t last forever, and as I’m currently writing from my bed — the pain has dissipated. It’s nice to know that things heal. Sometimes. Though I do understand that as I get older, things will heal less and less.
Stress…

October 27th, 2022

Is it good stress?

I’m coming off of a few days of uncertainty. Last night, to the consensus of everyone in the household, I had an anxiety attack — or more than one of them, if it wasn’t the same one holding on. My last sleep period was divided into three major segments, attempting to begin at 11 PM last night, and ending at 5 PM today. I missed my therapy appointment today because I slept through it (even with an alarm) — which is really irritating, because I had come to some insights.

Yesterday, we visited the de Young museum…which was nice but also anxiety-inducing. There were a lot of people; a lot of unmasked people; a lot of children; several people coughing. Including two, who we were standing in line with, who didn’t move away from us.

The main reason to go was to see the Ramses exhibit, but there was also an exhibit by Faith Ringgold (whose only work I had known, was the children’s picture book Tar Beach [yes, there are adult picture books: see, for example, F**k, Now There are Two of You, by Adam Mansbach]). The Ringgold exhibit introduced me to, “story quilts,” which I had not heretofore known existed.

Ringgold was able to combine storytelling, painting, and quilting, with these works. The stories were written out in numbered muslin or canvas panels, while the central panels were often large-scale paintings on what appeared to be canvas. These were sewn together with piecework quilting around the outsides of the painted and written works.

I recognized that Ringgold was grappling with some of the same problems I’ve been trying to work with: the valuing of some forms of “art” (painting, drawing, etc.) above forms of “craft” (quilting, embroidery, etc.), with (majority) mens’ work frequently being relegated the status of “art”, thus valued more, and (majority) womens’ work frequently being relegated the status of “craft”, thus valued less. It was stated better in the exhibit, but you get my drift.

This fairly directly reflects on my experiences with beadwork and sewing.

There are also a good number of Museum Stores scattered around the de Young. I found a book called Make Your Art No Matter What: Moving Beyond Creative Hurdles, by Beth Pickens (2021). It’s an easy read, and I got fairly well into it last night, before attempting to sleep.

I’m not sure if this is what caused my anxiety attack: I realized that what I was doing with the Library Science thing was attempting to find a way to support myself, so I can practice my art (jewelry design, writing, beadwork, etc). This doesn’t have to be Library work (and it may be better, if it isn’t; it would mean less resources [time, energy, and money] spent in Professional Development).

I also came to the conclusion that the next step may be a move to Hawai’i. I do wonder if we should set aside a block of resources to use if/when we ever do need to, “abandon ship,” so to speak, and move somewhere else. My major concern is going out there and then running so low on money (due to the extravagant cost of living and notoriously low pay) that we can’t leave. My second major concern is all my books, rotting…

Right now I am having a hard time seeing us staying in Hawai’i, largely due to the issue of insects, which M can’t stand, and which I simply dread having to deal with — let alone the huge juicy cockroaches out there, or saucer-sized spiders. Or giant centipedes. But M has told me that the next step is either my, “getting serious about getting a job,” or my parents, “getting serious about finding a place in Hawai’i.”

Pickens emphasizes that the next step is not the rest of your life; it’s just a next step. It’s what makes sense, now. She also emphasizes the fact that capitalism is just something that we all (in the U.S., at least) have to live with; and this plus the Protestant work ethic means that we are pressured to live to work, not to work so that we may live.

I’m reminded of The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, by Max Weber, which was a core text in the Sociology Department at my first University. I’m seeing multiple entries as to when it was first published in German, as versus first translated into English; let’s just say it began to be issued in 1904.

I’m seeing a number of threads here. One thread is dissatisfaction with our current socioeconomic system. Another thread questions why we value what we value. The third thread looks outside of that system, or at least, can see the possibility of not letting it consume the rest of my life.

From here, it seems that as a child, I was never really encouraged to think about what I wanted to do as an adult — though that’s not really true. As a youth, I wanted to become a geologist specializing in Magmatics, and study Plate Tectonics (the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake seems to have left a mark on my psyche) and Volcanism (particularly, Hawai’i; but also, I was interested in the Plutonic formations in Yosemite National Park…last I checked, Tioga Pass was still rising: there’s a magma chamber beneath it).

Then I got into University and found out that Social Sciences existed. After attempting this, I realized that I wasn’t a highly social person, and reverted back to what I knew I was good at: Writing (which by most measures is a relatively solitary occupation…at least, if you’re a Creative Writer. As a Staff Writer or Journalist, where you need to interview people, things may tip the other way).

Growing up, over and over again, I heard that my options were either to, “go to college,” or, “get a job at [name redacted fast-food restaurant]”. There were no other options. When I was in University, I was told to just major in anything, it didn’t matter, so long as I graduated.

This is not something you tell someone who is in psychiatric crisis and can’t think more than eight years ahead: but then again, they did not recognize that I was in crisis. Had they known that I knew how easy it was to give up…maybe I wouldn’t have majored in what I did, because I would have opted out of University until I could get my head together. Until I could think that I might have a future, and try and figure out where I wanted to go in that future.

I don’t know what, “just get a degree,” was supposed to teach me, or prepare me for. I could say that it pretty much didn’t prepare me for anything, other than being a career academic; but there is a world of difference between where I was before I went to Undergrad, and where I am now, after two Associate degrees, one Bachelor of Arts, and one Master’s degree…in regard to considering life possibilities.

It’s something I can see others in my circle, noticeably not having. I haven’t had children; I haven’t had to marry a man I didn’t love or trust for financial support; I’ve been able to see myself outside of the role of a, “homemaker.” I can see that I can learn other languages and look beyond my own national borders, which is something that even M sees no point in doing. I can see the point, because being able to look over the fence means that there is a world outside the fence. There are other places to escape to. There is a world outside of this. Yes, you may have to learn another language, but learning other languages is possible.

And yes, there is a world outside of Librarianship, I can see, now. My hope for Librarianship was that it would be a means to my end of practical survival, while allowing me enough extra time and money to write/bead/paint/whatever.

It might allow enough funding, but there is also the question, now, of whether any type of Librarianship is suited to my personality. I may have made a misstep in the past; is it still my duty to continue on this path?

There’s also the fact that I’m outgrowing the idea that in order to be an honorable person, I shouldn’t accept money from other people. That’s not a belief conducive to the world in which I live; and it doesn’t make sense in a capitalist society, where a person needs money (or what money can buy) to survive.

But maybe there’s a difference between engaging in commerce, and being a Capitalist.
Doubts

October 20th, 2022

I’ve tried to start writing this twice, today. I’m just trying to get my thoughts in order…but writing also helps me where it comes to stress reduction. I haven’t been writing manually too much, though I did manage to get a record down about my more recent beadwork trials. The beadwork is also stress-relieving.

What is not stress-relieving, is this class. At this point, I’ve done everything I needed to do, for this week. I am seeing more clearly that Information Science, where it merges into Computer Science, is not something that comes easily to me; whereas Writing, does.

I have been able to name a number of classes in which I struggled like this: one was Fundamentals of (Computer) Programming; another was Database Management; a third was Introduction to Computer Science. I also attempted Calculus for a short time, but ended up bailing on the day of the first test (I understood the concepts, but in practicality, I had no idea how I was doing).

If I look back on the classes I was interested in and did well in, a lot of them relate back to culture, art, and writing. Although I did for a time attempt the Social Sciences, in reality I saw no future in Sociology or Ethnic Studies. I did not plan to become a Professor, and I may have been too socially withdrawn to be functional within Social Science, so I ended up majoring in the only thing (besides my home life) which was a constant: Writing.

Writing is a practical skill, which is a very large benefit…but I haven’t sought out everything I can do with it, yet. Why? There are a number of reasons I could supply in response, but it doesn’t change the reality that I just haven’t tried to get a job in Writing.

I think that part of it is fear of being honest in public. The fact that fear even exists, however, is proof that my voice is needed — because it means that, somewhere within me, I sense someone wants to silence voices like mine. And I have spent a large amount of my lifetime, being silent. Writing has been my way out of silence.

As I look back on it…there are a lot of ways I’ve tried to skirt social taboos, though I don’t feel quite at license to get into all of them, here. When I was younger, I was more rebellious; at this point, I just don’t want to deal with other people having issues about my existence. Their issues shouldn’t be my problem, but I think it boils down to an ideology thing, and thus to a sociopolitical thing, that affects economic things.

One of the reasons to choose Librarianship as a field, in fact, is wishing to avoid people telling me for the rest of my life that I shouldn’t be there (as I suspected would happen if, say, I tried becoming an Electrician). But then I get into the Library world, and I experience sexism and misogyny (with racism) — noticeably. I shouldn’t have to deal with this.

But dwelling on that, is what leads people into despair.

I also didn’t realize to what extent Libraries — in the US, at least — are a battleground, where it comes to trying to remove boundaries; to keep people able to be aware of the wider world, and educated. Liberal democracies can’t function with an ignorant polity; they degrade. Their degradation means that the people being ruled are more easily controlled — and a lot of people want to wield power over others who are easily controlled.

That, however, is the death of a liberal democracy. By, “liberal,” I mean to refer to living up to an assertion that human rights are fundamental, and that an individual should have the right to guide their own life and destiny. I may not be naming this precisely to the “T” where it comes to shared definitions (I haven’t done a Literature Review on this): but there are a number of books out on the decline of “democracy.”

In contrast, “illiberal democracy,” a term which I believe Fareed Zakaria coined in 1997, occurs when we elect our leaders, but our leaders don’t care about preserving our human rights — or willfully violate them. Allied with this, in my mind, is the idea of preserving the human rights only of those people which those in power, grant the full status of “humanity.”

Of course, “in power,” is debatable: at this point in history, different “leaders” have different factions, and power is not universally recognized. However, structural inequality and history, together, make fairly clear contextual pointers as to why we even entertain some of this stuff.

I could get deeper into this, but I’m not feeling well-read enough, at the moment. I’ve been pouring my time into technical things in order to try and stay afloat. Looking back over this blog, it was indeed much more interesting when I was consistently reading!

And there is a lot, that I want to read. Further, if I want to ever become a Professor, or ever write on these topics and become Published (more than self-published, that is), I’ll need to be reading a lot more than I am.

Maybe in that way, I could come to some kind of decision on just where I want my focus to be. I don’t think I’m afraid of becoming Faculty, anymore. 🙂 But there is still only a limited amount of time in which arranging time and resources for learning will be relatively painless. I have the skill to write; I have been trained how to research. The topic, the field, is the issue…and maybe it wouldn’t really be such an issue, if I had access to a brick-and-mortar University library and could read, in-depth, over time…
Doing what I want to do (ref)

October 18th, 2022

I have just posted at the following link:

Doing what I want to do

Initiation

Toxicities and safety

Hitting home

Warrant

Calculated risks

Color mixing

Are you hesitating?

Learning more about what I want to do

Avoidance