i do not exist. this statement is my first step to reawakening and reconnecting with art.
for so long, i was told, and i believed, that art was a tool. a message. a weapon.
comfort the oppressed, discomfort the oppressors. punch up. represent. fight for them. fight for us. art is our weapon.
be good. be good. change the world. be the person, be the story, they need you to be. recreate their identity in your image, turn your skin into a mirror. replace yourself with their ideals. art will change art will mold art will wound
and yes, it's true. no one said these last things to me out loud. but i heard them. loud, deafening, true, undeniable.
and after pulling myself apart piece by piece and selling my queerness like sugar-free candy, i lost hope i lost purpose i lost my future i lost my self and all i had left was the pain of mere existence
i was a weapon, blunt and rusted, the weapon everyone clamored for but no one would bother to wield, a tale better told elsewhere
all i could do when there was nothing left was wander through myself. through the collapsed egos and overgrown trails and the dens of monsters, i tried to find my true self. i found nothing.
one day, after so long, i decided to embrace that nothing.
and here i am! not okay, but better.
i make digital collage art! you're looking at some right now. it's fun! it gets hard sometimes but it's fun. look at more of my stuff.
i'm writing again! about solarpunk and queers scared to get their fuck on and ghostly romance and girls in pieces buried in a junkyard and horizons of strange lights and endless flux
and i see myself a cloud between heaven and earth a walker in the fog an ordinary human who lives and breathes a galaxy
my art is a monument, a patch of lichen resting snug on the bark of an oak, my art is a swaying rope bridge between a thousand moments, my art is a promise to you reading and hearing this: that you walk with me and i walk with you, each others' guides home and beyond.
and yes. these spaces may be battlefields. they are right now, you know they are. invaded, colonized, on fire, drowning. but the field is not the weapon itself. the forest and sky and city are not war machines. art can never be the weapon. we cannot be the weapon. i cannot be the weapon.
i do not exist, and as strange as it sounds, for me that means that i am more than a tool, a message, a weapon.
i do not need permission or purpose to change, to grow, to create, anything, i am too far gone to hear or understand those expectations now
i am a cloud between heaven and earth
when the battles and wars end i will be here. you will be here too. we will still create together. speak up with me, with your whole self, and make something true.
oriana greene, originally spoken aloud at lost levels, march 23
images used: https://www.flickr.com/photos/swallowtailgardenseeds/19676577405 - https://flickr.com/photos/terryballard/51372211939/ - https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d2/Joseph_Mallord_William_Turner_-_The_Channel_Sketchbook_-_Google_Art_Project_%282444175%29.jpg
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