note: this image has been created by adding my face, some extra eyes, and a bit of extra tweaking to a jewelry ad i saw in qantas magazine. this is one image i've created that probably looks fairly similar to the original. the artist wasn't credited with the ad, to my knowledge. i would like to leave this image in my diary as part of the record of what was going on with me at the time, but i will remove it if it is a copyright issue, or I will give due credit.
a couple of things. recently, i've been feeling very self-conscious about the ways i've expressed displeasure with my body. it's not that i think i can just 'get over it' or suddenly feel differently about it, but i think that possibly i can express it differently, maybe in ways that are less insensitive to others. and that maybe i can try to explain more about how i see others. not that i intend to do it this minute, but it's something i think of as important to me.
the other thing i have on my mind.. well, not the only other thing, but i seem to be in a fairly bad way recently, even worse than usual, and there are a couple of things i can isolate to talk about, that's about it. the rest is too difficult.
when i was a lot younger, living with my family, there was something i did to try to reach out to the world or hold onto ideas of what i thought was part of what might be out there. i'd be unable to go outside, and i had no real contact with the outside world, and i'd spend so much time in my room.. ok, when everyone in the house was finished with various magazines, i'd go through them and cut out any images that seemed to strike me as possibly representing some part of whatever vague ideas i had about what i wanted. maybe i wasn't so imaginative. or unusual. so, i cut out the images i was drawn to.. a lot of the images were photos of places to travel to. some were arty-looking erotic photos, there were also beautiful women, interesting clothes, dance photos, art photos, pictures of beautifully prepared food, etc.. i don't know, just whatever seemed to stand out to me. and then i'd put all the images on my walls, covering the walls, arranged in a weird pattern that i'd be inspired to choose. and i'd look at the walls, as if i were staring at my insides, trying to solve some mystery, or at least absorb something vital.
but i guess a big part of it was just in trying to hold onto what i thought i wanted, before it became too impossibly vague, before it slipped away completely.
and moving somewhere new, i'd take down the old photos, and think there would be new ones in the new place. anyway.. the photo above is not my own artwork. it's a way of representing this part of my life that i have just been talking about, in a way. it's a picture from a jewelry ad, with my face inserted into it, and i've made a few other minor changes to it. gk has lots of travel magazines.. every time he travels he picks up the free copies on the plane. most of the time i can't bear to look at them. the other night i was feeling really hopeless about travel, feeling stuck in limbo.. and then i started to get this idea that i could express some of my frustration, and also maybe poke fun at myself.
i think when people travel places, most of them end up with the same old photos that everyone else has. that's happened to me when i've travelled anywhere, and it distresses me.. but it's like when i'm there, i'm not comfortable enough to *really* photograph anything. and i don't feel beautiful, and unfortunately i've always associated travel with looking beautiful in photos of unusual places.. i don't really know how to get away from that kind of thinking. it's like i don't want to be seen in these places, or don't feel i deserve to be in these places, unless i can project who i want to be. but at the same time, i want to address the idea that i'm probably like a lot of people in wanting to have photos of myself in these various places, and wanting to look attractive in the photos. so i sort of want to make fun of that, make fun of myself.
so the other night i scanned in various photos from travel magazines, thinking i would sort of see what came out of my frustration and my disappointment in myself. i started to feel overwhelmed, because i had so many ridiculous ideas.. and it's like i keep putting off working on what i think i want to work on. and for what.. just this silliness. i don't know. in a way, it may help to pass time, but i do feel resentful. i feel lost, and trapped in limbo. but i sort of want to see what subconscious messages i'll get if i just get it over with, stop resisting. and so far, what i'm seeing is just me alone, in various places. it's like somehow when it comes to creating images, i can't seem to feel i deserve love or sex or not to feel alone, and when i try to create images that show some of these other things i want, it somehow ends up coming out differently.
the photo above is entitled 'nepal', because i found the shape of the ad to bear an uncanny resemblance to a photo of a mountain in nepal that had caught my eye, that would have been one of the things i would have cut out and put on my wall in days long past.
i don't know that i actually am acquiring much in the way of skill, so i can't really use that as an excuse as to what i'm doing at present. there may be a lot of silliness to follow in the next week or so, though, it's hard to say. as i travel in the only way i seem to be capable of at present..