Putting It Together

Life is sometimes funny where you find inspiration again. I had tried a few times over the past 20 years to find the spark to let this project move forward, even getting partway completed back in 2011 with a colored pencil concept... but nothing felt *right*. I'd hit a stumbling block and couldn't figure out where I needed to go next.

Through a series of odd things that I'd rather spare you from having to know the details about, my best friend asked for my help with a rather personal painting project for her fiancé, who also happens to be my ex-boyfriend. Thankfully, we have the kind of friendship that painting her butt blue, making a print of it, and turning it into a rather nice work of art is a bonding experience, rather than a deal-breaker. Why is this important, you might be wanting to ask me? I noticed a feeling wash over me when I was about an hour into working on the painting. It stopped being about what the image was, or who it was for... it just was art. And I haven't felt that peace painting in so so long. This moment was the tinder, and all I needed was for it was a spark to let it catch and become a gleaming flame.

The day after I dropped off the painting at my best friend's house, I was feeling pretty physically crummy. The list of physical illnesses I have is long, and it was one of those days where all of them decided to act up, at once, without mercy. I've been trying to be better about being gentle with myself when I need some extra self-care, so I was making sure to rest in bed and ask Kevin for what I needed to recuperate my strength. That's when the spark hit me and I had to listen and help it come to glorious, shining life.

It started as just an antsy, squirming feeling like I wanted to be up and moving and not resting, which isn't uncommon on the days that I have to let myself take bed rest. It feels almost like something crawling under my skin that only can be assuaged by me moving and/or doing something to occupy my mind. I've had this feeling happen more than a few times, so I wasn't concerned overly much. I tried distracting myself by talking to friends online... but it wasn't enough. The feeling intensified to an itch that made me want to claw my skin off with how persistent it was. The sensation was like a fire crackling within my bones that needed an outlet before it would burn me from the inside out. Kevin thought I was slightly mad when I called him upstairs, half frantic, begging him to get my sketch pad and graphite pencils. My lovable husband didn't know the difference between my colored pencils and my graphite ones and grabbed the Prismacolors first. I was stammering because of how deeply I felt a sense of urgency to capture my thoughts before they slipped away, stuttering as I quickly rattled off exactly where my drawing pencils were so I could sketch. After he finally found them, I quickly got to work, desperate to get the swirling thoughts in my head onto the page.

For the first time in decades, I let the inspiration flow unhindered. I wish I could tell you exactly what I was thinking in the two hours I was sketching, but it truly is a hazy blur. There was this beautiful connection between my mind and my hand without a barrier of conscious thought in between as if my consciousness decided to take a two-hour vacation and let my subconscious do all the work. There were points I briefly recall being annoyed at my body because it couldn't move fast enough to capture how fast my thoughts were flying, the inspiration was that intense. It took me a long second when I was finished to realize it, not understanding until a sense of rightness washed over me and washed the desperate, almost manic, energy away. When my consciousness surfaced once more, I surveyed my work with a sense of wonder and pride. This... this was the piece that could finally bring it all together. This was the central keystone, the tying knot. I knew it in the depths of my soul.

Ten. Ten seemed to be the magic number my brain came up with for the main emotions of the series. I don't know why, but looking back, it worked out perfectly. I decided then and there that this needed to be a painted project because one thought that I can recall from the haze that struck me as the one thing that was desperately needed to tie the entire project together. At that moment I knew without a doubt that the background of the main piece had to be mirror painted, shining and bright as if you could see yourself in the cracks between the shards, as the viewer is forced to place themselves in the Shattered central image and realize what Masks of Emotion they choose to wear every day of their lives.

As someone who is autistic, I have had to emotionally mask the majority of my life, to the point that it's made getting a diagnosis difficult, if not downright impossible. When I tried to create this project years ago, well before figuring out my autism, I saw the emotions as just faces, alive in their own right. This time, I knew the emotions were simply Masks, worn when needed, but not alive. When I was placing where each mask's shard would go, I knew on instinct that I had to be careful about the placement, as it would matter, even if I didn't have the vision fully of how that would matter until I started to face the emotions in the project head-on. There was a sense of gravitas like I had stumbled upon something very important as I was working that lingered around me when I looked at the final sketch.

I didn't know what this sketch had started, just yet. I didn't know what it would grow into. I didn't know that the next 20 days were going to be an utterly mad whirlwind of creativity that took me to highs and lows I wasn't expecting, nor in some cases, able to cope with. I didn't know that the fire created by this spark would consume who I was to let me be reborn from the ashes.

All I knew when I looked at this painting was that something was on the horizon. Something that I knew in the depths of my soul would be born before the old year died. All I had left to do was hang on and survive the journey.