#yeah I know I shouldn't base my creative flow on others but I think it's also indicative of a larger loneliness problem

[rubenesque-as-fuck]

I remember you saying once that you didn’t feel (paraphrasing) that your art schooling experience was very fulfilling, and I believe you used the word slapdash 🥺

Can you tell us about your artistic journey following that period? How did you get from unknowing to growing?

Ok, so first apologies because this is a long one.

After college I was so focused on surviving that I didn't really have the time, space, or money to focus on making art for a long time. A few months after school ended I was homeless and couchsurfing to avoid living in my car. Over the next 5 years or so I bounced around a lot. Moved across the country and back, ended up homeless again, worked three jobs at the same time to afford a place to live. In this period, the only really meaningful art that I made were a couple of commissions to paint garden sculptures for my friend's mom. Example:

Anyway, then moved to my current place almost 7 years ago. Still mostly didn't feel like I had the time, space, funds, or fucks to give to do art. Once I got the apartment to myself a couple of years later, I started to feel like I could breathe a little easier and started doing small creative projects like trying out tie-dyeing for the first time. It wasn't until after Covid hit (and I got it bad enough that I truly thought I might die alone in my apartment) and then I left my job that I really started painting for myself again. Once stores opened back up, I bought a bunch of cheap canvases and paints. I've never actually taken a class on acrylic painting (there was never one available during my school time) but it's the medium that works for me most often.

I did a couple of random projects when the mood struck and I had the spoons, the Camp Fuck You I'm a Wizard painting being the biggest example. But rarely worked on a single project for longer than a day or two before losing steam.

Meeting D was a creative catalyst for me. For the first time in over a decade I felt Good, I felt Inspired, because I felt Wanted. I jokingly (or not so jokingly) referred to him as my muse, because his enthusiasm and encouragement made it so easy to fall into more projects and try new things in my art and feel great about all of it. I created more pieces, and importantly more pieces that I was actually proud of, after meeting D than I have in the entire rest of my life combined.

But obviously that didn't work out. He's still an encouraging presence from time to time, but it's not the same. It's getting harder and harder to want to create, to feel inspired lately. I felt good about my last project, but it was a commission and that's probably the only reason I finished it. Most of the dregs of my creative energy currently go into making OF content to keep that small trickle of income coming in. If I weren't getting paid I probably wouldn't have the drive to do that any more either. Turns out intense, soul-sucking loneliness isn't good for the ol' creative flow. I don't know if I'm growing any more.

[curiousgalacticsoul]

To all the CleaStrange fans out there, I, on behalf of palmerstrange nation, genuinely wish to convey something :

1. We are not hating Clea at all ! (some exceptions might be there) because we know she's an important part of Stephen's life in the comics. All we're saying is if mcu wanted Clea, they should've introduced her since Doctor Strange (2016) and shouldn't have shown Christine at all then. Now there's the emotional turmoil of who he'll end up with, hurting either one of the fandom for sure (cleaphen or palmerstrange).

2. I read an interpretations of my earlier post by a CleaStrange fan re-quoting my opinions such as 'mcu shouldn't introduce clea NOW' & 'stephen's in love with christine NOW' & 'cleaphen won't make sense NOW' etc & saying these are selfish statements. I think the writer forgot to write 'now' in their post & didn't realise its importance here. I used 'now' to emphasize that we respect whatever happened in the comics, but in MCU they've shown palmerstrange to be such a soulful & beautiful couple (not our fault) that NOW it won't make sense to make Clea a love interest of Strange.

3. Ever wondered what happens during book adaptions to movies? When movies are made based on/inspired by a book? The makers have the creative freedom to alter or modify the story as per their vision. They either portray the plot word by word, or modify it entirely for movie version.

4. This is exactly what MCU is doing with their movies (& series) with respect to the comics. MCU is not a mirror reflection of the comics. Eg. many more Avengers were part of 2012 NY battle against Loki in the comics, but mcu focused it on the original 6! Same was the case with Ultron battle & fight against Thanos.

5. Now, the people who've entered the world of MCU with Iron Man (2008) without ever reading the comics (like me) will watch every mcu project with a fresh eye & open mind, whereas comic readers will have some prejudices & expectations ready in mind while watching mcu stuff. It's natural, I 'm not blaming them (happens with me too when I watch a movie whose original book I've read priorly). Not knowing the whole story beforehand gives us the advantage of going with the flow, seeing, thinking & feeling the events, the characters, their bonding with each other etc, without unconsciously comparing it to the books/comics.

6. Also, MCU makes movies as much as for non comic readers as for comic readers, so they give everything a fresh start. Not necessarily everything has to be from the comics, some characters might be missing, some might be new.

7. One might be surprised to know that there are many comic readers who absolutely love Clea in the comics but also are mature enough to understand how important Christine is to Stephen in mcu & hence desparately want Palmerstrange in mcu.

8. Even we're upset with mcu actually that they left Palmerstrange hanging onto the cliff all these years. Either they could've saved it or didn't show it at all, that is, either don't show Christine at all or make Palmerstrange official

So, yeah, the conclusion is :

a) we don't hate clea

b) we would've loved to love Clea as well had she been introduced earlier in mcu, in place of Christine

c) as we're non comic readers, we solely depend on mcu for its beauty, story, characters & not the complexity of the comic plot line. So please understand why we say that we love palmerstrange. Because we see it without any prior expectation in mind, without any baggage of the past, just the way characters are shown & see the core human nature in them, as mcu wants to show them to non comic readers.