Handicaps and Hazy Ethics

If you have been here for a while you have probably heard about my trial and error with graduate school. If you have been here long enough, you might have even read along with the story while it was happening.

To catch up new readers, I will be brief:

After college I tried graduate school. Twice. The first time was to become an art teacher, what was expected of me and what I had been told my whole life I should be if I kept an interest in art. Realizing that children-and standardized tests and politics and lesson plans and politically correctness- were not for me, I thought maybe a professor of academia would be a better fit. You can at least say curse words if you teach at the college level.

In love with my new environment where I was taking classes for a Master of Fine Art degree, I spent most of my time skipping class and hiking. It was a heavy year. I was depressed, I was a bad version of myself to other people, I got outside with my new dog, I was transfixed by the beauty of upstate South Carolina, I fell in love with the man I would later marry the next year and I learned to let go of everyone else’s expectations of me and began, for the first time in my life, to make decisions for the kind of life that I- nobody else- wanted for me.

When I was not following the footsteps of Ann Messenger and skipping class, I showed up and tried to find some sort of belief in myself through the critiques. One day in class, my professor listened to me while I told him my fear of creating the kind of work that I really care about it because I was not sure if I had the true agency and responsibility to do so. He listened kindly then said, “Tell your story, because you sure as hell are the only one that can”.

This piece represents letting go of the fear to discuss the topics I really want to talk about. The taboo of sexuality in the South. I really need to talk about misguided advice, often from erred understanding of scripture, that was used to shame and humiliate us girls as we grew up in a rural place. I have to say something about sexual assault and blood on the land down here.

Let this piece start the conversation as the painter behind it works to heal.

Blue. (An informal invitation)

I recently spent a weekend with the aunts (my mother included) in Colorado. We flew in briefly for one of my cousin’s weddings and it was the first time in several years that the four of us were rounded up for an adventure.

We reminisced about adventures we shared in the past. Aunt Lucy recalled, as she does every single time I see her, a night in downtown Denver when I walked into a glass door while trying to be sexy in front of a bar of young men. That one earned me the nickname Giselle. My mom interrupted with the time I drunkenly mocked a mother with a gaggle of children waiting at the elevator in our shared hotel who screamed at one rolling on the carpet “git up off that flo’!”

For the rest of that weekend, I kept inserting it anywhere I could with enough soul for James Brown to be proud of.

Keys fall on the floorboard? Git up off that flo’!

Mom dancing in the car like Marsha Brady on her own private discotheque and you want her to stop? Git up off that flo’!

Would it sound far-fetched to believe that that is what most of my twenties felt like? Unable to get myself up off the floor, my legs wildly fumbling underneath me like that kid rolling on the carpet who needs an adderall.

When you have depression, momentarily or life-long, people do not understand how much effort it feels like you are exhibiting and how you desperately want order and structure you just have no idea how to attain it. They see you spiraling and they want so much for you that their expectations feel like another blow. One sign that you may suffer from this is if you are given a lot of planners as birthday presents.

Becoming resentful about depression only turns your face ugly. Like the one you make when you take a sip of flat, watered-down, unsweetened tea when you were expecting sweet. Pretty soon the ugly seeps into your insides and you develop an inferiority complex and an Oscar worthy performance in drama.

I thought the only regrets in my life would be the standard ones like not studying abroad in college or having a bad hair era. Looking back, I regret not shaking hands with the darkness inside of me; you have to acknowledge your pain before you can change it.

Depression and anxiety stole the things that gave me life like creativity, peace, time well spent, honest friends who I know love me enough to call me out on toxic behavior and, mostly importantly, joy. It made me a nasty, bitter, angry, and resentful person.

Five years. That is how long it has been since I created a piece of art, my beloved since day one. This coming Saturday, October 10th, I will be having a small art show reception at Half Full in Newberry, SC from 5:30-8pm.

I am not afraid to tell you about my struggle because without it, there would not be a show. There would not be the studio I find myself sitting in right now. There might not even be the girl sitting here.

We may not be able to share a hug right now, but I hope you will stop by tomorrow to share some joy, light, and reverence. It took awhile to get here and I am grateful to be able to share with you.

Take care of yourself, mind, body, and spirit,

Ali

*Please wear a mask to protect others who may be in poor health and unable to afford the medical care to know it.*