art•ist
noun
1. a professional narcissist suffering from crushing self-doubt and insecurity that “normal people” will ever understand
2. someone exhibiting extreme compulsive behavior which sometimes manifests itself in shitty drawings, songs no one will ever hear, poems no one will ever read, monologues that will never have an audience, and novels that will never be written.
Stylistically, this is a bit different than my typical illustration style, although it’s not as different as the image in my head that I set out to create.
But, that’s usually how it goes, right? Often I’ve reflected on the repetitive exercise in disappointment that is creating art from a specific feeling or inspiration—we have this slippery, sudden, painful, overwhelming urge that needs an outlet, and before we can quite help ourselves, like mental projectile vomit it shoots out in a gross manifestation that falls flat of our own expectations. While that disappointment stings, we are still comforted by that feeling of release that comes after being sick, that tide of post-nausea relief. The feeling is out, it is made concrete, and through that process we can begin to understand what it means, what it says about us. We carefully study and scrutinize this thing, making Rorschach tests of our own artwork, hoping it will reveal the answer that will make everything okay again.
