playlist

my situation with art is that I'm developing my skills in using fire alpaca - so I can do some nice abstract kind of images but I don't have good technical art skills. There's a way you're supposed to work - you do a sketch, then you do the line art, then you colour in the line art and add shading. 

so, I stopped watching tutorials about fire alpaca and clip studio paint (because they're generally about that process I just described), and I've been watching videos about doing art - traditional and otherwise - and trying to incorporate an element of realism (or stylised realism) into my images. I was going to put an image in this post, but it's too embarrassing. 

i kind of feel like a liar, and I'm struggling with the idea that I shouldn't write at all, because I'm going through mental health issues. 

In her book, Black Sun: Depression and Melancholia (1989), Julia Kristeva writes (in the first sentence): 

For those who are racked by melancholia, writing about it would have meaning only if writing sprang out of that very melancholia. 

but writing or any other form of creative expression does not spring out of melancholia. It's kind of a truism - I've heard it and read it in a few different contexts - that depression is, in many ways, the opposite of expression. I'm not sure if it's a quote. I read one article that said that Dr Wayne Dyer said it. anyway, it's true. depression leads to withdrawal, and it feeds on that withdrawal. It makes you feel alone and alienated, and that is confirmed by people's response to you, because people don't know what's going on in your head so they just think you're behaving badly - so you get criticised, rejected, people leave you alone (they actually think that's what you want, because of the way you're acting, and because you're withdrawing). So you feel worse and withdraw more and feel worse and withdraw more, etc. You think, based on their reactions to you, that no one would be interested in hearing about how you're feeling and why you're acting the way you are. 

but unfortunately, it's not a simple equation where you negate your depression by expression. 

Sometimes songs help. Here are some of the songs I've found helpful:

Audrey Assad　Breaking You

Tell Your Heart To Beat Again - Danny Gokey

Lauren Daigle - You Say (Cover by Nadia Khristean ft. Rise Up Children's Choir)

You're Gonna Be Okay (Lyric Video) - Brian & Jenn Johnson

Plumb - Beautifully Broken

Matthew West - The God Who Stays

Lauren Daigle - Rescue

Casting Crowns - Oh My Soul

It's interesting that they're all Christian songs. It's not that I don't like secular songs.....hey, I've never been a particular fan of Christian music. I like Greenday....listening to them now actually....and Pearl Jam and Grimes, Powderfinger....and Tool....and O'Keefe Music Foundation's kids' versions of Tool....like, check these out:

The Pot by Tool Version 1 / O'Keefe Music Foundation

The Pot by Tool Version 3 / O'Keefe Music Foundation

but where do you go when you actually really need hope, when you need help? When you need a bit more than some encouragement or a kind word? When you're beyond help? When there's no chance things are going to work out? When everything seems to be ending and dying and falling apart? There's only one place that I know where there is redemption. 

.....anyway, as I was writing that I was thinking about all the secular music I love. Here are 2 of the best cover versions ever: 

Purple Haze Jose Feliciano / Jimi Hendrix

I'm not gona say that Feliciano outdoes Hendrix here, because that's not really possible, but he does his own extremely good rendition. He also does some excellent covers of the Beatles and The Mommas and the Papas and other bands from the 60's and 70's, where he does a similar thing....his version is his own - he owns it. 

Powderfinger - While My Guitar Gently Weeps (The Beatles Cover)

Powderfinger was one of the great (Australian) bands. I think they're up there with INXS and AC/DC, but somehow they didn't get the international recognition they deserved. Maybe they didn't court it. Not sure what happened. Anyway, they're one of those bands whose live performances (like INXS and AC/DC) as good as, and sometimes better than, their studio performances. 

Coda:

José Feliciano - California Dreamin'