asher27

I am reposting this from my blog: comingupfrombehind.tumblr.com/… I don't visit dA much anymore but I figured that since this was relevant I would post it here.

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design vs art

I've been dying to write this for a while now. It's something really personal to me, and I don't really know how this will turn out. Maybe I should write it down on paper first - but no - I'm addicted to technology

For those who don't know - I'm an almost out of school yet already working graphic designer - but I was also an "artist" for lack of a better term before hand.

From a very young age I showed an aptitude for drawing/painting/doing artistic things, so I pursued what I was perceived to be good at. In high school, I doubled up on my art classes all four years, which allowed me to graduate with an A average after failing out of spanish and failing a year of math. I went away to school to study art with the intention of becoming a graphic designer ashleyhandlin.com/ - so for a year and a half I was in upstate NY doing almost entirely fine arts, and then for half a year I was home doing liberal arts with an extremely intensive painting class, and then for another half year I was doing both fine arts and design in NYC, where I go to school currently for design. For the past year and a half I have been almost exclusively designing with little "fine art" on the side. In high school, I decided I wanted to become a graphic designer because it made the most economic sense to me - I can make artwork (I mean that term and the term artist in the most unpretentious way possible) in a commercial aspect and get paid for it, without the hassle of going the fine arts route and trying to get people to buy my fine artwork which is much more difficult and prone to economic failure. Win-win, right?

Or so I thought. To be honest, I'm ambivalent about the work I create these days, rather than enthusiastic and proud. Everything I create now has a dollar sign in mind, rather than an actual feeling, an idea… anything. It feels so empty. Concept was never my strong point - I was always best at execution rather than the initial work that goes into the creation of artwork. I definitely blame part of this on my lack of culture - I do not read books often or do other cultural things because of my ADHD - I would rather read the internet (mostly news and long magazine-like articles and essays) and browse things of interest (aka TUMBLR!) for hours instead. My eyes are glued to the screen, to the point that it's starting to hurt these days. The ADHD and my brain injuries keep me from remembering most of what I read, it's as if I am an oversaturated sponge that can no longer soak up and retain knowledge and ideas. Needless to say, this has poorly affected my work for years now.

On top of that… I lost my ability to draw freehand because of design. To save time/make more money, I often trace over other (stock) images for the creation of a lot of my work. It's pathetic, considering how good I used to be at drawing something from life or a reference. This is the thing that upsets me the most - while I will never forget how to see, I most certainly can forget how to draw and paint. I even used to sculpt and build stuff, although not very well or often. What I miss more than anything in the world is working with my hands.

Nowadays I sit at the computer from 10-6 at my job designing merchandise for Broadway - and while I am super fucking thankful and lucky to have my job I sort of hate it. The creation of merchandise is minimally creative - most days I am working with artwork given to me by the shows who already had a design/ad firm do the work. Somedays, like today, I get to draw new stuff for shows that don't have a lot of artwork or bigger shows that can have more variety on top of the given artwork. I actually really liked what I drew - I'd post it, but that would end up in me getting fired lol. But, it was a tracing over a stock image. So here we go. I lost my ability, or maybe just my confidence in myself, to draw well.

Anyways. I'm so fucking scatterbrained, if you can't tell by my writing here. I made a promise to myself that starting this school year I was going to take time aside to create traditional artwork BECAUSE I CAN. Not to make a profit necessarily, but to re-ignite the talent I have inside of me. I really really really miss drawing the human figure from life - it was my absolute favorite class ever and I either drew or painted from the human figure for two years straight, nearly every day*. Nothing feels better than the feeling I get when I'm working from life. It's better than sex. It's better than drugs. It's amazing. My mind shuts off - I stop thinking. I just work. It's completely intuitive, spontaneous, impulsive… Whatever I felt before I started working that day is gone. If I was upset, I am then happy. If I was stressed, suddenly I was then calm.

I would take a college class on life drawing this semester, but unfortunately I need to take more important classes so I can graduate already (May 2012!). I think I am going to take local art classes at the art league, where I got my first taste in drawing nudes from life when I was 17 (and in my opinion, created some of my best work). I am also going to draw whenever and wherever I can when I feel the urge to, so I am bringing a sketchbook along with me again, just like I did in high school. And finally. I still need to eat, so I will be creating my personal design work from traditional methods again - not because I can't create what I want on the computer, but because I am painfully nostalgic for the romance I had working analog.

*It just so happens that a while back I collected most of my nudes asher27.deviantart.com/gallery… from my first year and a half of college that I spent upstate, as well as a few drawings from when I was still in high school.

Also, I want to add that Hazel Dooney's writings hazeldooney.blogspot.com/?zx=3… and her work www.hazeldooney.com/ have inspired me to go back to what I love… She happens to be one of my favorite artists of all time, and more significantly, my favorite living artist. Also, she's on tumblr dooneystudio.tumblr.com/ .

featuring attempted armed robbery and attempted assault with a deadly weapon!

so today i went to pick up my friend from the train - she went into the city yesterday and spent a night with her friends. anyways, im driving back right, stopped at a red light where the cross street is a main road… next thing i know, a car pulls up to me, driver staring at me, and a dude jumps out of the backseat brandishing a 12 inch long chefs knife, tries to attack my friend through the window, then attempts to open my back door (which my retarded self left unlocked as i dont ever lock my doors). luckily, my best friend was like ashley! HE HAS A KNIFE! drive! drive! DRIVE! so i fucking BOOK it through the intersection, almost cause an accident, and go right cause its slightly safer than going through the intersection. weave in and out of traffic, people honk their horns like crazy, and finally i am confident that i lost them and make a left onto another main road. call my parents, call 911, meanwhile my friend is now in a full blown panic attack. i drive her home while on the phone with 911, drop her off, and then go back to the police station to report the crime. shits fucking crazy. my best friends girlfriend is like you know that what happened are federal crimes that carry 10 years a piece right? haha. the whole time i have absolutely no emotion - pure adrenaline, get this car out of this situation ASAP. im a damn good driver to begin with but this was some crazy shit, even for me.

its finally starting to dawn on me the intensity of what happened. what if he got in? what if he realized that we probably only had $20 or less on each of us? my car is a 1996 volvo… so its not even worthy for a carjacking. so then what? rape? murder? both? i have a feeling this was some gang initiation or some shit.

today is one of those days i feel really lucky to be alive and have an amazing best friend. had i been alone, shit would of not ended well AT ALL.

lesson of the day: lock your car doors. stay alert in your surroundings. when suspicious cars pull up next to you and stare, fucking book it. dont even think. just go… getting hit by another car is better than getting shot or stabbed.

well... im alive. figured id start with that as my last two journals were a bit worrisome. the funny thing about my brain is i cant remember much anymore, so i forget that all that stuff happened, the depression, the stress, ect. i remember it only when reminded.

i suppose im doing OK. i love my internship, and its quite mutual. its like a relationship, with life! i feel so awkward though, i really need to become comfortable in my own skin and im working on it. i feel like im 6 years late to that party, that i was supposed to solve that problem during puberty, not when im 21.

theres a lot that im holding back from people, very few people know even 3/4 of me. im very open and confident in person but that openness and comfort with myself is actually a facade... im quite guarded and unconfident about things. i really want to just write out everything there is to know, everything that im hiding from half of the people i love... but i cant. im working on gaining the strength to. maybe one day, one day soon. its quite inevitable at this point. id write it all out on here but there are people im friends with on here that im friends with in real life, not to mention my full name is connected to this account. then again, my full name is connected to my tumblr, and that says a lot of what i want to say here but in pictures instead of words.

as for rob, we still talk from time to time. hes been going out clubbing and shit with these bimbo looking bitches. i told him that his taste in women has seriously declined and im disappointed in him, he could do so much better. im not really hung up on him, yes there are still lingering feelings which will never go away, but im more just sad that i havent quite found someone yet. my situation is FAR more complicated than his though. the people i seem to get involved with are either with someone and unhappy or single but hung up on their ex. and all are crazy. ugh.

as for the tumblr: comingupfrombehind.tumblr.com

my ramblings especially in this post will make a lot more sense after looking at that. pictures are worth a thousand words

as i write this im having a pretty bad panic attack. number 2 today, (or maybe 1.5? i had one an hour ago and i calmed down a bit), had a few small ones yesterday too.

i need a psych badly. stress of school + relationship stress + stress of professional success - little sleep = recipe for disaster. freaking the fuck out. hoping that writing this nonsense will ease the symptoms a bit so i can get back to work. have an 8 page booklet due tomorrow with original copy - i can design like no other but i cant write for shit, especially under this kind of pressure.

oh, and i start my internship @ major magazine from a major publishing company in NYC tomorrow. i need to be up in 5 hours. FUCK.

all i wanna do is lock myself in the shower right now to calm down, and then sleep. but i cant. hate hate hate hate this nonsense. need meds. badly. cant stop shaking, feel like i cant breath, heart is racing, brain isnt working, i feel like my world is caving in. im supposed to be happy right now, with the whole coveted internship.

maybe i really cant handle this. maybe the idiots at the brain therapy place were right. maybe this is all my fault, i had it too easy and it all came crashing down at once. fuckkkkkkk.

i think since coming to the realization that this is permanent, that the ex-bf and i are never getting back together (and being friends seems more like wishful thinking than reality), i have become Depressed with a capital D. not to the extent of crazy homicidal/suicidal, but to the point where my body just cant/wont function. the standard definition of depression is a marked loss of joy or pleasure in doing things that once brought either, for a period of two weeks or greater. in that regard, i have no desire to create anything really, no desire to design, no desire to eat, no desire to do anything really... not even a desire to sleep.

when i sleep i get crazy dreams that are frightening, for example last night i was repeatedly stabbing a man that looked eerily like my ex-bf but no matter how much or how hard i stabbed he wouldnt bleed, he wouldnt die. he would just have these holes in him, like he wasnt even human but yet he was. this went on for forever (which, in real life was probably 20 minutes, but 20 minutes of dreaming can feel easily like 2 hours). i woke up sad, with no desire to get out of bed.

i feel like my life is purposeless now... i make plans with friends but they always fall through, or if they do happen i feel removed from them emotionally. im also beyond moody, ill fly off the handle at the slightest of things. oh yeah, and my stomach is a disaster, i feel like im either going to puke or cry all the time.

i fucking hate this. i feel so empty. im starting to hate him now, which is a feeling i didnt know i could feel.