Our protagonist reacts to an emergency situation…
aSoSS 27 | Sidestep
I don’t know where we’re going.
I don’t know either, but that’s why we can figure that out together!
RoosRoast, 1:00PM, 9/7/2024
i can see it in your smile, your hesitation, that your head weighs heavy by the burden of unremembered dreams. do you still dream? it’s a silly question, but your breathing slows. yes. don’t you? somewhere, a siren wails. i resist a glance. i hardly sleep! a deflection, but you don’t press it. both of us are suffering from a deprivation of intimacy, a betrayal of the conscience. i take your hand and we set off together, chained by sentiment, sentenced to walk the earth alone: one of us carrying a burned map, the other a broken compass.
No problem… don’t tell anyone this ended 18 minutes early and we can both get some work done, okay? Alright see you!
Traverwood Library, 1:12PM, 10/9/2024
time should be defined not by length but by density. with each rotation of the hand, a fresh layer of ink is superimposed on the brain–not erased, but written over; there is simply no space to contain our existence. the words form, stack, and topple. you are there but hidden, impossible to uncover. my tears fall alternatingly, like footsteps crushing fresh snow. the things i cry for, are they crying for me?
[grabbing a box of kombucha] you gotta promise me you’ll drink one every morning!
Costco, 4:00PM, 10/15/2024
breathe deep enough and you can feel your belly brush your spine. is your stomach touching your back? the government lacks a measure of hunger, perhaps because it makes fools of all of us: our stomachs, our eyes, our touch. food deserts parch urban jungles. apartments pop up like mushrooms after the rain, grayed and wilted, porous, vacant. you stand up–the sand will swallow us and make soil from our bones–and walk away. the ache inverts my ribcage and gnaws at my tongue.
up above, the vultures wait their turn.
Witness the Small Life: Electric Boogaloo
A tale as old as time… a know-it-all girl who loves to just talk and talk but yet still is late to uploading her first blog of the semester to do just that…
Welcome back everyone to another fantastic year of arts, ink. and Witness the Small Life!! I am extremely happy to be back and creating artwork for this wonderful series again. For those who don’t know me, my name is Mia and I’m a sophomore here studying Art & Design alongside minoring in Education! I am a talkaholic who enjoys doing the most, consuming copious amounts of media, and taking in the world around me. My blog right here, Witness the Small Life, is an outlet for myself and also you all to remember to stop, smell the roses, and take note of all of their various scents. I’m someone who believes that life is made from the small memories that allow dreams and fantasy to weave their way into our daily rituals and through creating this blog I hope to spark that feeling in you as well. This semester I’m thinking of changing things up perhaps a tad: getting more creative and experimental with the artwork, having specific themes for entries, and maybe even talking oh-so-much more than I already do ;P
I’ll keep this one short and sweet as I already have to hurry off and tend to my ever-growing to-do list, but here’s a quick rundown on what I’ve been up to since the start of the school year: Just got back from visiting home on a 5am flight after having my last sip of Caribou coffee for the next 6 weeks, spending 5 hours in the studio to finish print pieces that I thought I hated but actually really love, and enjoying classic procrastination sessions with the numerous essays I have to do always.
If there are any comments, questions, or confessions you need the world to hear (or just little ol’ me) always feel free to share them on these posts! I love seeing the thoughts and ideas sparked from the weekly ramblings of these doodles and pseudo diary entires so please do let me know.
As always, to take into our next week:
Ins: Raspberry anything, bok choy, naps wherever, developing bargaining as a skill, puzzles, short legged dogs, appreciating paint stains.
Outs: Bad hair care, not checking the milk’s expiration date, setting hyper-specific alarms, Impact font, kicking rocks, sleeping without proper neck support.
I will see you all next Monday for more word salads, daily doodles, and whatever else life will throw our way!
Scales + Jacket Concepts
There was a period where I wanted to make Lias fancier. As always, their markings are based on pallasite meteorites. I wanted to give them an alien vibe, because space. The center of their chest is translucent, and I hope gives off a squishy texture. Not sure how the chest meshes with the arms and shoulders. Also, I’m also testing out different hairstyles.
For the clothing tests, I’m searching for a tailored, stylish, and old-fashioned vibe. What could be more refined than a cape?
A Side of Sketching – Big House Football
Hi everyone! Welcome to the first post in my blog: A Side of Sketching! Each Monday, I will share a page or two from my current sketchbook, along with some explanation as to what inspired the sketches or where I was while I created them. I love exploring new places and experiencing new things, so many of my sketches will revolve around that. As a college student, I also take inspiration from campus events and the more mundane aspects of student life. So, whether it be trying a new restaurant, going to a hockey game, or having a late-night study session in the dorms, my sketches will provide a glimpse into my life as a college student!
A little bit about me: I’m currently a freshman at the University of Michigan! I have been creating art since I was young, and have experimented with many different mediums. Usually, I tend to gravitate towards acrylic painting and pencil sketching. When I’m not studying or making art, I enjoy hiking, yoga, listening to music, going to sporting events, and having spontaneous adventures around campus! : )
For this first post, I wanted to create a page that sums up a highlight of my school year so far, and I felt that a page inspired by Saturday football games in the Big House was the best way to do that! I’m not a huge football fan, but I love the atmosphere on campus on game days- from the student section chants to the marching band performances and head-to-toe maize and blue outfits. I made this page while in the car on a road trip, so it is fairly simple. Still, I’m happy with how it turned out!
A Crooked, Queer Meditation on The Fool
The first tarot deck I ever bought was the Fountain Tarot, and their description of the Fool reads:
“Suspended between spiritual and Earthly existence, the beautiful Fool is the newly born soul embarking on a bright adventure…Though some find his quest absurd, he is not swayed. With an open heart, he is led by the inner voice of his true Self.”
In the major arcana, the Fool comes first in the deck, before many other archetypes such as The Priestess, Magician, Devil, and so on. The Fool has yet to experience either the highs or the lows of their journey and relies on their inner compass to guide them. Because they don’t have much experience to draw from in their journey, they have to become comfortable living in the unknown.
The Muse Tarot, a favorite of mine, includes a poem at the end of every card description, and for the Fool Chris-Anne writes:
Fearlessly jump into
The sea of the cosmos,
The spinning potentials are calling —
maybe a little foolish today
yet better done fool-like
than stalling
Chris-Anne reminds us that sometimes we don’t have the luxury of knowing what’s going to happen or what the right course of action even is, and we still need to act. The show must go on.
One of the greatest steps I took in my artistic journey was embracing the fool. This was both an act of taking the pressure off myself to know everything, and acknowledging the ways in which I’d have to trust myself and my own inner knowing over industry norms that want nothing to do with a Queer, Disabled, Deformed femme actor. The rules as they existed left no space for me.
My own Fool journey was one of coming into deep understanding of the power of transgression. When I was training as a clown, one exercise involved thinking of a common activity, and then coming up with as many ways as possible to screw it up. How many ways can we do the most basic thing wrong? And where is the joy in doing so?
The Fool often doesn’t know how to do things “right” and may not even have any concept of the socially sanctioned ideas of right or wrong, good and bad, acceptable or not even are.
I think back to my childhood self. I was viewed as “crazy” for laughing too loud and too much, or just making weird noises in general, particularly when I wasn’t supposed to. Simultaneously, I was viewed as “angry” because I just couldn’t accept things that I knew deeply to be wrong. Whether it was through laughter or soapboxes, I was calling out absurdity.
Britannica describes the Fool as “a comic entertainer whose madness or imbecility, real or pretended, made him a source of amusement and gave him license to abuse and poke fun at even the most exalted of his patrons.”
The entry goes on to say that the Fool is “often deformed, dwarfed, or crippled…”
You’re telling me…
I spent the first decade of my time in theatre with a 90-degree curve in my spine. This was never meant to be a statement on anything; we perform with our bodies, and this was the body I had.
This Fool asks: Who determines beauty, and why can’t it include me?
Judith Butler said, “Gender is a performance that is repeated and becomes constructed through time.”
In this quote, Judith Butler is addressing the concept of performativity, which they discuss often in their writing on gender. Though it may be tempting to think of performance as something imaginary and fundamentally unreal, Butler argues (as paraphrased by me, a Fool) that performance affects very real change. To perform is to change something. Performing gender makes it real. By taking actions associated with and attempting to look like a given gender, human beings create gender. And it can be recreated anew, and it can look different than before. (It’s worth noting here that the Fool archetype has a long history of breaking down gender norms; my own clown, Pookie Ra Ra, is meant to be a teenage boy, but has noticeable breasts because I don’t like binding).
The Fool asks: What else can be performed differently? How can we change the show? What can we make and remake?
The Fool doesn’t necessarily have the answers. But they are not held back by what is. They remind us that where we lack answers, we can create them.
The Fool reminds us to embrace the unknown.
What the Fool offers us is hope.
“Hope locates itself in the premises that we don’t know what will happen and that in the spaciousness of uncertainty is room to act.” – Rebecca Solnit
