Sometimes I Go Out By Myself And I Get Really Bad Anxiety

My first ever proper solo! Holy heck!! So, I ended up singing Valerie, which was a bit difficult because, if you don't know, I'm a soprano and never really sing in my chest voice. Let's talk about it!
My Solo!

I chose to do Valerie because it's one of my karaoke songs! Also because our vocal coach was like you should do this song and I was like cool. I have this playlist called 'Road tunes' and it's on it so ^-^
I was pretty alright with my performance. I did it. I didn't have a panic attack or cry and I got an excellence so :p
Like I said before, the thing I found challenging about this song was probably the deeper parts. While I can sing in my chest voice, it's not the most comfortable thing to do so I struggled with pushing it out a bit.
I'm going to do the musical theatre song, 'Burn,' from Hamilton. So, I'd like to incorporate my acting stuff and work on my use of register.

lol bye

Status Artdate: Week 4 Term 3

Okay, I need to stop forcing art puns into my titles because
they never work :(

Regardless, I haven't done too much this week, which I can not-so-proudly admit. However, I am on the track towards finishing that one TV I was working on. So far, I've given up on the small one and begun a larger version. It's not too much bigger but it's a lot easier to focus on the details within the hands I planned to have coming out of the tv. Speaking of, I actually have gotten to the point on this piece where I have finished the general base for the hands. From here, I'd like to add a bit more depth, colour, and tone before I'm happy with it. Hopefully, I will be able to put this piece on my folio :)

Here's what I've got so far :D

So. I Entered A Gay Writing Competition.

I'm not sure how that sounds, but let me explain... Inside Out is a new Zealand LGBTQ organisation that is currently holding an 'Out On The Shelves' writing competition. The idea is to write a poem or flash fiction story that explores the 'rainbow' experience, either within a character or the themes.

This is what I submitted :)

Words Like Knives

‘I don’t want to be afraid to hold your hand. We hear gunshots when we kiss. Our existence alone is illegal in 72 countries. That can’t be normal. It isn’t normal.’

“So that’s it, then?” Four simple words sounded so harsh reverberating through my head. I asked myself the same thing. A simple sheet of paper, as light as a feather. And it was like concrete. The words felt so heavy.

“I guess so. That’s what happens when someone struggles with internalised homophobia, doesn’t speak to you for six months, and then breaks up with you via letter.” So yeah. That was it, then. The words became too heavy. They slipped through my hands, fluttering towards the floor. I wanted to crumple them. I wanted to rip them up. Ruin them beyond recognition. “I think you should take it, Ivy. The letter, I mean. I should think. A lot.”

I didn’t seem to register any movement after that. None of my own. No one else’s. The world and everything else in it seemed to stop in that exact moment. But I handed off the letter. And in turn, the little safety net I had left.

The days after felt grim.

I fell into a hole of isolation. Stuck with my own thoughts, who danced through my doubts. The words, though straightforward in intent, were doused in fear. Fear of who knows what. Myself?

‘We’re a danger. To ourselves and everyone around us. I can’t live with myself and I don’t know how you do it.’

It took me a week before I even got out of bed.

Dark clouds danced among the trees. A small groan escaped my lips as I held the curtains open. Tattered nails ran their way through streaky hair, only to cringe at the split ends. The mirror threatened to shatter at every glance. Each scar of acne, each strand of hair, oilier than the last, is another crack in the fragile glass.

Everything hurt.

I would have liked to close my eyes. Forever. I couldn’t though. Hot water ran over old calluses, burnt to the touch. White tiles were soaked after a few seconds. The edge of my shirt hung around my thighs as I fiddled with the hem. Each edge crumpled as it was grasped in two clenched fists and pulled over my head. Raindrops were out of sync with the shower’s droplets, drawing the sound out in my head.

Water enveloped my body, now finally lukewarm. A slight tilt of my head allowed the smooth waterfall. As though molten chocolate, in the form of thick clear liquid, was poured over each inch of my skin. It closed my eyes like a hand rolling down my face. The dark was… inviting.

As soon as passive thoughts were silenced, aggression rattled against the walls of my mind. It was almost as if I were standing under an overpass, a train rolling by at a mile a minute. The sound felt eternal, loud as hell, and forever rolling by.

‘My family hates me, God hates me, because of us. Everyone hates me because of you. Eventually, I’ll hate myself too.’

As the water shut off, the train disappeared. I finally emerged from under the overpass, and things became clearer. Cool air hit my empty skin and froze. Desperate, I scrambled to feel familiar warmth again.

I couldn’t find any.

“Bee? Are you still home?” My mouth dried up. I was panicking. As I backed into the wall, it became a crutch. The crutch that held me together at the seams. Shaking knees buckled, but the door was there. I touched my thumb to my middle finger, remembering to breathe. And then my pinkie. Then my pointer finger. Finally, my ring finger. Middle, pinkie, pointer, ring. One, two, three, four. “Abby?”

“It’s not my fault. I swear, it’s not my fault.” It didn’t sound like my voice. It was my voice. But it didn’t sound like it. My head fell in my hands, I couldn’t feel it. I suddenly wasn’t myself. It was my voice and my body, but I was no longer the puppeteer.

The silence was deafening, but it was all I had. Nearing footsteps broke the peace like glass. It was like it had been hit with one of those bats we’d play softball with. Not the piddly little tee-ball bats. The heavy ones. The ones that actually do damage. “You can’t just hide out on the floor of your bathroom. What are you- Are you okay?”

The door creaked on its hinges, only deepening the letter-induced trance sending me spiralling through morality. Warm hands engulfed mine. One, two, three, four. I needed to breathe, but the air was suffocating. I was entangled in my safety net. “She left because of me, Ivy. I’m a damned disgrace.”

“Bee, you are gay. It is not a sin, it is not a disgrace, and it’s certainly not your fault she left you.” Her voice, calm and collected, pierced through the fog. It’s told this story a million times. Yet I continued to drown. The weights on my ankles pulled through currents and tides.

“She hates me. Her family hates me. And I should hate myself, right?” The small sentence was obstructed, choked through tears. “The letter was right. I’m a danger to myself and others and-”

“Look at me, Bee. Look at me. Her beliefs are not yours. You are valid. Completely valid. No matter what anybody else says, anybody at all, you shouldn’t be afraid to exist.” My arms wrapped around her in a solid embrace, melting into a familiar touch. Tears rolled down tattered cheeks. I finally felt at home.

“No one should be afraid to exist.”

Status Update: Art Term 3 Week 3

This week we're focusing on series and sequences. I have actually been thinking about how I'd like to sort out and order my own folio, as most of my pieces at the moment are quite stand alone. However, I do have concepts that will (hopefully) work in sequences with each other.

Anyway, relating to any actual update, we did an activity that helped us see series within a portfolio. As pairs within the class on Monday afternoon, we were given a portfolio to study and cut into its series where we see fit. Casey and I worked together on this folio:

These were the series that we saw:

We actually got quite confused with some of these pieces. Those four in the bottom left corner? We were caught between whether they were one series with all four of them, or if they didn't actually go with each other at all. We were caught on this because while they're all (self?) portraits of who seems to be the same girl yet they are all different styles.

Finally, this is the sequence we believe the folio was made in:

Looking at it now, I'm not sure whether or not the black and white photos we put second are mean to be second but if you look back at the actual portfolio, if it were to be read left to right, that is where it would sit.

In regards to my own work, I don't have a lot of things to update there. So, I had this concept that is really hard to explain so I created an actual like photoshopped concept picture and now I've lost it. It's gone. :(. I have started that idea though, so far it's a weird bunch of boxes that slightly resembles an old tv. In other news, that 'The Creation of Adam' drawing I started? Yeah, I hate it. I do still like the concept though, so I want to go about it in a different way. Instead of having to draw the hand, I'd like to see if I could do a multi-media type of thing for it like mayhaps I could use some bible verses for the background or just straight up use the original piece for the hand. I want to draw the snake though. Because snakes aren't as hard as hands. 

So here's that tv resembling thing :)

I'd like to size it up for the actual thing but I could hopefully still use the smaller version on my folio.

God, I Hate Shakespeare.

**Disclaimer: that title is a song title from the musical 'Something Rotten.' If I actually hated Shakespeare, I wouldn't have done the Shakespeare festival for 5 years in a row.

    So. William Shakespeare. What a man. The name is infamous within highschool students because it's shoved down their throats every other year. Despite that, what do we actually know about the bard? 

    Well, born in 1564, he spent most of his life in the Elizabethan era, before dying in 1616. Over the course of his life, he wrote *at least* 37 plays and 154 sonnets. 37 is the most common number I could find but it's not a solid number as many could have not been published, under his name, or he merely collaborated on. 

    Fun fact: He has no known middle name. I don't think most people did but you know. Interesting.

    It's actually an ongoing theory that Shakespeare didn't write all of his published pieces himself, and had his own ghostwriter. I'm not sure what proof there is of this but I would not be surprised. He seems like a prick.

    Looking over these plays, there are some very particular things you notice within each of them. For example, costuming and speech are two of the most obvious things to me. The costuming, due to being in the Elizabethan Era, is all quite structured. With rolls of fabric to create bum bumps, complete modesty, and frills galore.

    Shakespeare's plays are written to mostly be spoken in iambic pentameter, which means in 5 sets of 2 words, the second words have the stress. A 'di dum, di dum, di dum, di dum, di dum,' kind of this. On the other hand, Shakespeare almost made an entire language for himself. I don't typically hear people say 'talketh.' So.

    Another fun fact, my personality mostly coaligns with Ophelia, according to Magiquiz.com :)

Level One Connections

Anything is harmful when abused. Especially when it is designed to create a physiological effect. Drugs and alcohol may be two of the most infamous abused substances, usually to the point of addiction. My theme, the harmful effects of alcohol and drugs, is prominent in media such as ‘Walk The Line’ from James Mangold, ‘Parents’ from The Meth Project, ‘Your Brain On Jingle Jangle,’ from Netflix, and ‘The Umbrella Academy’ from Steve Blackman and Jeremy Slater.

The film ‘Walk The Line’ by James Mangold shows us the harmful effects of prescribed drugs. We watch as Johnny Cash develops an unhealthy relationship with the prescribed medications ‘amphetamine’ and ‘barbiturates.’ He uses the excuse that the doctor prescribed them to ignore the fact that he is truly addicted. Throughout the movie, Cash struggles with this addiction. It becomes clearly harmful when Johnny crumbles on stage as an effect of the drugs we see him take. For example, for his Las Vegas show, he appears late and quite out of it. His suit is messy, his shirt is untucked, and he looks a mess. He’s sweating profusely and is struggling with the harsh light. As the first song goes on, he slurs his words and is mumbling. June Carter, who knows John well at this point in the film, sees that something is wrong. We see this in her expression as she watches her friend forget the words, yell at his drummer, and get angry at his mic stand after he almost drops it. He quickly becomes dizzy, as the camera, handheld, becomes shakier and a lot less smooth. Eventually, he falls. After a shot of Johnny laying crumpled on the ground of the stage, we’re shown a shot of his face. The dialogue comes and goes as he fades in and out of consciousness and there is a blur around the edges of the image. Without explicitly telling us that his addiction is harmful, Mangold shows us how Johnny relying on these prescription drugs caused him to overdose and how it is affecting his career. Not only is his job affected, but he ends up harming his relationships with both his family and his friends. His children become scared of how angry he gets when facing withdrawal symptoms and his wife leaves him.

Riverdale’s PSA, ‘Your Brain on Jingle Jangle,’ tells us, more so than showing us, the harmful effects of their made-up drug ‘Jingle Jangle,’ which can just be substituted for most class ‘A’ drugs. The fifty second PSA shows one of the main characters, ‘Veronica Lodge,’ in her diner, holding a plate of food. She tells us “this is your brain,” picks up a frying pan and says, “and this is Jingle Jangle.” She places the food on the counter as she tells us that this is your brain on Jingle Jangle, before smashing the food to mush with the frying pan. This tells us that taking this drug destroys your brain in a similar way to how she destroyed that burger. Veronica destroying things continues for most of the ad. She says, “this is what your body goes through,” while she hits a basket of fries off the counter. Then she goes on to smash plates, cups, etc. to represent what your family, ‘frenemies,’ and friends go through when you take ‘Jingle Jangle.’ Finally, a single milkshake sits on top of a counter, before Veronica takes a sharp swing at it. This all is a clear depiction of the overall harmful effects of drugs on anyone who may take them. Becoming addicted to drugs destroys your brain and damages your body from the inside out. It’s depicted as almost guaranteed your relationships, with family and friends, will at least be strained if not completely ruined.

The same ideas of the harmful physical effects are shown similarly in both ‘Walk The Line,’ and ‘Your Brain on Jingle Jangle.’ Both texts explain that drugs can take a toll on your health, in similar yet different ways. In the PSA, Veronica uses a more metaphorical way of showing us this as she takes a frying pan to a bowl of fries. Thus, she destroys them the same way drugs do inside of your body. Walk the Line shows us exactly what happens by putting us in a scene with someone who has overdosed by blurring the screen and muddling the audio around Cash.

The Meth Project makes all sorts of PSA’s based on the harmful effects of meth. In the specific 30 second PSA, ‘Parents,’ we see how the boy who is addicted to meth is isolated from his family. He has seemingly been kicked out of his home and is trying to repair this relationship. For example, we’re first shown the boy running through a gate. The shot pans to the mother in the window to the living room, letting herself collapse onto the sofa as she sobs. Their son runs to the front door, screaming that he’s sorry. When the father enters the living, his body language and facial expression tell us he is pissed. As the kid screams for his parents, the father goes to confront him, only to be pulled back by his distraught wife. When he’s ignored, his feigned remorse turns to anger. His screaming only gets louder, his cries now threats. He is literally screaming ‘let me in, I’m going to kill you,’ and trying to kick down the door. In a wide shot of the entire scene, the father pulls away from his wife and turns off the light. We’re left with only the porch light illuminating the son. This is done to show us the disconnect between him and his family. The kid’s left outside during Christmas. The mother is upset, the father is angry. We very clearly see the tension caused by this kid’s addiction to meth. There’s barely any relationship left between them and the parents have resorted to ignoring and shutting out their own son. 

Numerous scene’s throughout Steve Blackman and Jeremy Slater’s Netflix series, ‘The Umbrella Academy,’ show how using drugs to cope with life takes a toll on you and your relationship with those around you. For instance, Klaus Harvgreeves is the ‘druggie’ of his family. He started doing drugs at a mere thirteen to cope with his ability to see the dead. This is because these drugs repress this ability due to developing a harsh relationship with it after being locked in a mausoleum for days on end. Our introduction to Klaus in the first episode, ‘We Only See Each Other At Weddings And Funerals,’ is him leaving rehab before immediately buying drugs. His interaction with the other people in rehab leads us to believe this is not the first time he has done this and that he is constantly in and out of the centre. Later on in the same episode, he rummages through his late father’s office, one that he was not allowed in during his childhood. In this scene, he is looking for something of value, as he knew his father was quite well off. When he is caught by two of his adoptive siblings, we’re shown what their relationship is like. While Allison doesn’t tell him to put anything back, Luther does. We’re given a view of the tension between the two. At his father’s funeral, Klaus is clearly high. He’s smoking during the very, very small ceremony. He both doesn’t care enough to be sober and holds an obvious grudge against his father, as he was the reason Klaus became reliant on drugs. In the episode titled, ‘Man on The Moon,’ we see how harmful his reliance on these drugs really is. In this episode, Klaus has been kidnapped. During this time, Klaus is unable to get high and is sent through horrible withdrawal symptoms. All while unable to help himself, as he is tied down. He screams in anguish, obviously struggling to come down from his high. This scene is one of the first times he’s been properly sober in years and he is in clear pain. Despite this, the only way for Klaus to help himself in this scene is to get sober and face what he’s always feared. Throughout the series, Blackman and Slater show us exactly how Klaus’ reliance on drugs holds him back, puts tension on his relationships with his family, and damages his health all at the same time. 

This lack of family trust and relationship seen in ‘Parents’ is also seen in ‘The Umbrella Academy’ between Klaus Hargreeves, his father, Reginald, and his adoptive brother, Luther. The two are actually very similar in how they represent this familial stress. Both Klaus and the boy are outsiders within their own family. They’re both looked down upon by their parents and neither of them are helping themselves with their drug use. From what we know about the boy in ‘Parents,’ he doesn’t have any siblings. However, his parents treat him like a headache, a distraction. Luther treats Klaus this way too, thinking he’s no more than annoying.

Taking and becoming addicted to drugs and alcohol does not only affect you but those around you too. ‘Walk The Line,’ ‘Parents,’ ‘The Umbrella Academy,’ and ‘Your Brain On Jingle Jangle,’ all showed us as an audience, despite being very different texts, exactly how addiction can affect you physically, mentally, and socially. They each explained that no matter who you are, not a lot of long-term good comes out of substance abuse.