Only time will tell

Me at FreeState (Picture by Sara Rude-McCune)

I had no idea that the second thing I wrote in the last blog entry would hold so absolutely true for me.

You can certainly scroll down to read it, it's on the entry for Friday October 11th 2024.

I wrote “days become weeks, weeks melt into months, and years pass by faster than ever…”

Time certainly did pass. And now I'm sitting here at 12:35 AM on the Saturday, pushing myself to fall back into line with life.

Life has been so utterly unpredictable, and I found it almost impossible to want to write anything on here. Part of that came from the apprehension I had of coming to terms with the change that I have endured. I know that I'm not alone in this. I think most people would agree that the majority of this calendar year has been some of the most bizarre and quite frankly unnerving moments to live through.

Personally

I went through some loss that hit really hard, with the loss of a family member, and a dear friend that I had known since I was 16. I also finally faced my issues with depression and severe anxiety after working through an appointment with a psychiatrist and getting a prescription for Zoloft. 

I know that medication isn't everybody's cup of tea, but within 48 hours of being on it, the vast majority of my anxiety was gone, and my depression had completely disappeared. It's been something of a reality check that also ended up being both a boon and a bit of a hampering in some of the work I do.

I rarely tackle the subject of sociopolitical or socioeconomic factors as a creator, or even just as a human being on this blog. But I would be lying if I didn’t say that as a man with First Nations heritage, coming from a Hispanic family, of which many have served in the United states militaries since the First World War,… real fear and concern for my own safety is something that I never thought would happen the way it has unfolded over the last few months. 

There is a surreal point of existence in my mind.

Days when I will go into a store, and it's business as usual. Maybe it's just taking a walk downtown on a quiet town square, the sun still shining. Nights when at least where I'm standing, the world seems to be in a peaceful slumber.

It led me to thinking about who I am. Why am I still trying to be an artist? Is there still a reason to be an artist? And what does my art have to say anymore?

Professionally

On the positive side, I recently was able to add a part time job for a company that specializes in memorial portraits for clients of funeral homes. I'm still in the learning zone of it all, but I very much enjoy the work because I'm able to bring some comfort to people who have lost someone.

I held off on doing a lot of shows until the later part of this year, for both financial and mental health reasons.

During that time, change still happened. 

While there were some unexpected things that came along like becoming a muralist, and starting up a legacy digital and analog media archiving service, I still felt myself being pulled back.

Not by anyone else in particular, just me doing it to myself.

Perspective

I've spoken before about my old college instructor George Sample. He was not only fundamental in helping drive my love of mark making with a pencil, but giving me and appreciation for allowing myself to sit still, live in a moment, etch it into my mind, and if even for a brief moment hold time hostage as I record it in a drawing.

He was also completely and overwhelmingly knowledgeable about perspective and geometry, far beyond what was taught in his drawing class. I remember many conversations with him that often pushed over into my self doubt and moments of insecurity about becoming an artist. One bit of advice he gave me was to remember that perspective is applicable in every circumstance.

That if I have a problem to overcome, to not just look at it from one angle. To get up and walk around and see if there is another solution or a better way to look at it. Maybe this solution isn't immediate, maybe it requires learning other skills, applying more practice, or understanding what is needed by thinking more about it.

I have found myself relying on that advice more than ever in recent months. To give myself the space and time to rest and breathe, to mourn and to reach out, to reconnect and reinvigorate.

Pursuit

No one knows what the future holds. But something I am more convinced of than ever before is that I don't have to go speeding into the future. Not all of my efforts will bear fruit. I won't get every interaction right. I know I will make mistakes.

I had initially decided to even hold off on doing any shows at all for the rest of this year. For any of you familiar with this blog you know that I've often talked about not doing shows because of burnout. Thankfully I had a change of heart.

I did a show a few weeks back, in Lawrence, KS, the Freestate Show, and it has a lot of people that I have known in the local comic book and art community that set up at it. I've never missed this show, because I do make some money at it, and I enjoy the vibe of it.

This time I tried to talk to as many people as I could. Old friends, new people, and everyone in between. Looking back, I'm grateful for every single interaction I had, even if in catching up with one another, sadness and weighted loss seemed to be all too common within our words.

But even with that, there was a feeling of familiarity and comfort that washed over me. I remember thinking to myself, “I am living in this moment, we are all here in this moment, laughing, breathing, relating to one another, allowing our voices to resonate to one another's ears about our lives. I don't think I've heard anything more beautiful in quite some time.” 

I'm not making that up. At one point during the show I found myself just people watching. And I started thinking about the first times that I met the people sitting around me at the different tables. The earliest I could remember some of the show attendees showing up at one of Craig’s shows. How much the independent comic scene has changed. It was a bit emotional for me if I'm being honest. 

How much I've missed, and how much I could have missed had I decided to not do the show.

So now what?

My goal is to just take it one day at a time. I recently started posting to YouTube again, and I finally got my workspaces back to some semblance of organization. There's a lot I have to work through, as well as understanding what I still want to do.

It's allowing myself to understand that it's not always easy to put pieces back in place when you have no idea what the completed puzzle is supposed to look like. That is very much the definition of living life.

"Stop measuring days by degree of productivity. Instead experience them by degree of presence." - Alan Watts

Thanks for reading. I appreciate each and every one of you!

- Mario the Artisan Rogue