Before the flood

I just finished watching Leonardo DiCaprio's "Before the flood" and I just wonder what is the fucking point of anything?

The impotence and frustration makes me feel so small. And not that I have a problem with that, I'm usually ok with that, there's a video that talks about the Hubble's Deep Field, where the telescope stared into a spot in the universe for eleven days and that also makes me feel incredibly small, but I find that feeling in particular, from that video to be so liberating and relaxing. As in like "oh, it doesn't matter either way, so I might as well do whatever I want", the feeling of nothing inherently mattering that I get from that specifically makes me feel great.

But from this movie. I mean, I think it's great and fucking genius that DiCaprio did this movie, what better way to reach a ton of people than through a movie? Better than music, better than any political channels, a movie is extremely approachable and easy to reach masses with.

I also love that Trent was involved, because he just continues to do things that he cares about and believes in and that is fucking inspiring as shit and he makes me want to do it, too. And the song "A minute to breathe"? I mean, I hadn't watched the movie when I heard it the first time, but it gave me goosebumps and teared me up. I don't hear the song lyrics as a person saying "I just need a minute to breathe", the footage of the video is images of the things that we do to Mother Earth, and I take it was Mother Earth saying "I just need a minute to breathe" and that fucking cuts me deep.

Towards the end of the film this guy with some horrible terminal cancer shows videos of Mother Earth from space and he mentions, as plenty of other people that have been to space, that seeing her from out there is some shit. I haven't, but I don't need to to be moved by Her and feel inconsolable sadness for her. And for us. I'm not sure about the "us" part. Maybe, I don't know. I just don't understand why we do this to ourselves? Why can't we just be fascinated and profoundly respectful of her?

And, it's not like the environment hasn't changed before, that's part of Her life cycle, it's what she does, but why are we the ones doing it? There's this images, not just in this film, of trucks and machines cutting into the dirt from whatever industrial thing, aerial images and it looks orange and it makes me think of us cutting gashes into her.

What do I do?
I mean, I recycle. I have two plants.
I'm not a wholly good person, because that's impossible and delusional, but I just feel like there's nothing I can do and something that I do on my own as a single individual won't do anything to help her.
Before or sometimes it's felt enough to do it for myself, to somehow be a small example, or lead by example, if anybody is watching at all, or just to wash my hands of guilt in that front. Or just because it's what's right.

I don't fucking know.

The movie made me want to do something, but fucking what? And will it even matter?
I find it insane that the bad shit the movie talks about could happen in my lifetime.

So, to me it feels like she's the one saying "I just need a minute to breathe", like she needs us to give her a goddamn break for just a minute. Or like when you feel overwhelmed and you need to take a breath, like you need to breathe before the panic attack comes flooding over everything. Just for a second.

I don't think it ultimately matters either if we disappear, humanity, and I don't think it inherently matters if Mother Earth disappears or we destroy it, either, but I do think that we are a very specific sort of stupid for not respecting her.
I think not respecting that upon which we depend to be a sort of stupid that I don't know what to call or describe. It's repellent, disappointing, saddening. Like when somebody that you deeply trusted lies to you or when somebody that you really care for does something that you cannot forgive, like that sense of loss inside, the feeling of a void inside, it has no name and it's not physical, but it is very present.

The twinkle toe

Finished this drawing today.

I drew from a picture that I found somewhere in the #balletfeet tag here in tumblr, with graphite over some very toothy cold press paper that was seriously ruining my life, because this drawing is so small and I found myself getting really fucking precious with it.
I drew for the duration of the third part of Dan Carlin’s Blueprint for Armageddon podcast, during which I cried by the way, which is almost four hours, then during the Welcome Oblivion album and then for maybe an hour more today. All this does not include the breaks.

I have a fascination with ballet feet, not so much ballet. Or maybe yes with ballet, I just wouldn’t go to a ballet show, I don’t think, that kind of really doesn’t appeal to me. I am fascinated by the way the feet develop with the ballet training and what they are capable of and how they become like mutant fucking monster feet. How when they curl their toes, the knuckles become so clear and it’s just like somebody clenching a fist, how long the fingers look and how fucked up they get, all knotty.
In my mind, “fucked up” and “monster” do not equate ugly or deformed. For me it’s the same as when I drool over hands that look like they DO shit, working fucked up strong hands.
The body responds when you make it do shit and what the ballet dancers can do with their feet just fucking blows my fucking shit away.
And the drawing is a man’s leg, which is all fine and dandy, but the girls going en pointe, their feet do some whole other shit. I read somewhere the boys go en pointe, too, but its scarce.
I find myself fascinated with everything, the exercises they do for strength of the toes, feet, ankles and legs, the way they prepare their pointe shoes, what they can do in the pointe shoes.

My reference picture, is this incredibly strange and hypnotizing picture of a male leg, barefoot and en pointe, with the toes curled under. I don’t know if they sprayed him with water or covered him in baby oil, but his calf is so strange. I guess the picture by default is phallic, but that medial head of the gastrocnemius makes me think of a penis. Also, that tendon that is sticking out and that cuts the entire picture almost right down the middle is mesmerizing, I think that's the Achilles Tendon, based on where it's going, but I had sure as shit never seen it go that far up the calf. I also know body parts get veiny with development and effort, but I don’t think I’d seen a veiny calf like that. Not that I can remember, anyway.
His skin is waxy looking and the grey background doesn’t help. And the hairs just make it more bizarre for me, although I have nothing against bodily hair.
So here you have both images. First my reference picture and then my drawing, which I titled "The Twinkle Toe".

Trent

For the past five days, I've been making it a point to make a small, quick drawing on paper that I scavenged in my last days at the New York Academy of Art. Shit that people left behind when they moved out of their studios. Some of the paper has been cold press Fabriano Artistico and some of the other, I have no fucking clue. Both kinds are very toothy, not my usual cup of tea.
I have found it surprisingly enjoyable and I've been using it as therapy in a way, to remind myself that I can draw and that I'm ok at it.
I draw for not too long, maybe three hours at most, without including breaks and I've been drawing from pictures that I've saved over time (and I mean fucking years and months) specifically with the purpose of drawing from them at some point. It makes me feel good to draw something just for myself, and this was actually advice given to me by an artist that I seriously respect and admire, named Abhishek Singh, he told me he always says that to his students.

So, yeah, it's been going on for five days, I really enjoy it, I have plenty of material to draw on for now, to keep doing this very hedonistic and satisfactory thing.

I very much enjoy and have enjoyed it since I kind of discovered it at the Academy, this process where, instead of just drawing the image, I kind of look for it, whilst I draw. Actually, I would say that I learned this mostly through a classmate: Matthew Comeau. This guy just beats the shit out of the paper and I remember looking at him and just being hypnotized.
It took me having a shitty midterm critique, when the winter break started, going into the last semester for me to try something like that and that's when "Lipring" happened, which I think is the first drawing where I tried that process and it was incredibly liberating.

So, I try to emulate something like that in these drawings and almost whenever I start a drawing now, basically. The drawing now is more like a search and a study and I draw until I find what I want to see. Erasing, correcting and drawing again, it is an incredibly enjoyable process.
Come to think of it, I think Dan Thompson's drawing is also a similar endeavor, so he definitely deserves some cred, too.

The last drawing I did, which was yesterday, is a drawing of Trent. Here you can see my reference picture and then the drawing.
The drawings that I've been making, I haven't really been meaning to copy the picture, just have it as reference and take things from the picture that I like: composition, lighting, features. That's why the drawings are based off of the pictures. With this one, though, I kept going back and forth and I couldn't decide if I wanted to copy it or not, I mean, it's Trent, why the fuck wouldn't I want to draw him and his beautiful face.

So, as you can see, my drawing is actually quite far from the picture, but I feel like it looks more "like" him than my reference.
And that stare and the facial expression in general, I like to think that's how he would look at me if I was drawing him in real life.
Or that it's the look I'd get before kissing him. Shy and serene. The drawing makes me think a lot of some pictures that I've seen of him and his wife that are taken very close to their faces and the pictures are very intimate, it's like my face is right in there with theirs and I can feel their warmth on my own skin.
These pictures ruin my life, obv.
They just resonate deeply, I guess. When I've been that close with a lover and I can smell his breath and we talk to each other with our heads really close, and I can feel his sandpaper skin versus the skin of the lips on my own face's skin and lips, and when you get close to kiss, their nose gets buried in your cheek. *SIGH*
So, the drawing makes me think all that shit and it makes me feel like this gif of Aladdin.