To: condorboy
Date: Monday, February 20—11:39 PM
Subject: ART!!!!!!!!
I can’t sleep again, but it’s a good thing because now I can stay up all night and work on my art, which I’ve been neglecting because of trying to do my FUCKING SCHOOLWORK because everyone was trying to make me feel guilty about my grades dropping. And I believed them; I let their little jabs of shame get inside me and distract me from what’s really important. Does Calculus feed anyone’s soul? Do mathematicians feel enlightened when they figure out some stupid equation? I don’t know, I am not a mathematician. I AM AN ARTIST. I am a stupid, confused teenager, but I am also an artist, and I have a right to call myself that even though the only galleries I’ve shown at are my bedroom and my sister’s condo. But maybe art isn’t about who sees it, maybe all that matters is me and the thing I make, me and the act of creating, those few moments stuck together where you’re elevated above this pathetic, polluted world, when you’re covered in paint or plaster and you’re talking to God with your hands and eyes and your big, pounding heart saying all the things you’ve ever needed to say, the movement, THE INTENTION your only language, and it’s bigger than words, bigger than your mouth forming recycled sentences and exclamations and all those sad, repeated things. There is only value in the things that have never existed before. This canvas with these strokes and these colors and these textures HAS NEVER EXISTED BEFORE. YOU and ME and THIS are the only things that matter.
Iz