My Admission.

This is very tl;dr

If you still care to find out whats been troubling me, then continue below. 

I don’t know how to start this properly, so I’m just going to come out and say whats been troubling me the most.

I’m burning out. 

Not just on one thing either. 

Art? 

Yea that’s burning me out sure.

But there is so much with that three lettered word that’s burning me out. It isn’t just the art, though I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t the bulk of it. 

Guys, I’m really really hurting right now. I’m not looking for anyone’s sympathy when I say that, but I’m currently at an impasse that’s going to make or break whether or not I can focus on doing my art as a main focus for pursuit anymore.

My finances are getting worse. The worse they get, the more I drown under them, and it’s become overwhelmingly obvious to me that I won’t be able to keep up with them with the pace that my work has been at. 

Now I know people would probably just tell me to suck it up and do the work to get myself out of this, but that brings me to my next question. One that I’ve been trying to make sure I get right when I answer it. 

Do I want my art to save me?

Or do I want to save my art?

I love what I do. I love it so so much. When I started this blog, I started it with one purpose and one alone. To draw the stuff I wanted to draw. Now that in it of itself has been a joy that I can’t begin to describe. Amounting the fan base I have that follows me for this sort of stuff, getting the kind of relevant praise for it every now and then has been great as well. 

Having people admit to me that they’ve become confused with looking at my art, saying that I may have turned them onto a new fetish. I loved getting messages like that. It was those sorts of messages that made what I do a bit more bearable.

Even still, I had to come to terms with how few and far between those sorts of comments were from the beginning. As time went on, those sorts of compliments would be a bit more frequent, but I would still collapse under the sort of anxiety that no one cared about what I was doing. I enjoyed what I did, but sometimes its hard to get any joy from it when you can’t enjoy it with people. 

I’d have to cry out for it sometimes and make these huge posts about how frustrating its been to do all of this hard work and yet feel a bit underappreciated for it. People would come out from the woodwork then, but only then. Afterwards, it would resume to the same sort of fan reception that I’ve grown used to getting for the amount of time I’ve been doing this. At this point I’ve become a bit numb to it.

Let it be known that I do appreciate every word anyone has ever gave me on the matter. I love the attention that I’ve been able to get with the insanely taboo stuff that I do. I never thought I’d get that sort of attention in the first place.

However, I didn’t know that after a while I would start to feel that desire for more validity in what I do. I may be a grim-dark artist on this blog, but I am still at the core of my being an artist. 

And yet I’ve never felt part of that community. 

A lot of the time when I would place my pictures up, I would kind of secretly hope that another artist of some caliber would give my art a small like or something. The only reason I ever looked for this was because it meant that they respected what I did on some degree. Having that respect is very very important to me, because it makes me feel like I’m on their level in some form. I’d be able to maybe approach them and feel confident that we’d have that same form of mutual respect. 

Iunno if I just haven’t been looking or not but I felt like that was never there. 

I’d just watch the rest of the community interact with each other while I kinda sat on the sidelines wondering if I could ever be a part of that. I mean sure I could just go up to these people, but would they actually even care? Why the hell would they? Look at the shit I draw. I mean sure I can see that what I do is good, but would they even care to know me as an artist with the content that I take to? 

A lot of these assumptions and notions I thought up was what kept me from approaching other artists for a long time, and then after some other negative experiences I’ve had with a few artists, it just made it all the more harder for me to even approach them all together. 

I still kind of have trouble with it. 

Yea sure boo-hoo grow a set of balls and get over it right? 

“Get over your fucking fears and just man the fuck up. No one is going to just extend an invite into their fucking friendship club.”

Iunno what to say to that honestly. 

Just put yourself in my shoes I guess and then ask yourself if all of this would seem difficult to deal with. 

Is it even possible for anyone to have that kind of hypothetical if they themselves don’t even relate to the content? 

I dunno. Maybe it’s a moot point. 

Anyway, I’ve never felt part of a community. I never really felt I had a circle of people to talk about my artistic struggles. I’d talk about feeling lonely and people would react to that saying, “You’ve got a great fan base wth are you talking about” 

And yea I guess you’re right I do have a cool fan base, but again it doesn’t help me with putting me somewhere with people I can relate to on a creative level. 

After subjecting myself to this sort of shit, I also started to deal with a lot of life shit. I was moving around a lot. I left my home in New York and went to Cali. I moved around in Cali 3 times. I’m now in Oklahoma. I’ve dealt with a shit ton of emotional trials outside of my artistic life that has taken its toll on me. I’m becoming exhausted. 

My fiances are racking up and I am starting to get burnt out on my art. I have commissions to do. I have Patreon work I want to do, but its all been an insane amount of pressure to work work work. With how my money issues keep going up, it becomes seemingly more and more hopeless that I’ll be able to get myself out from a ruin that seems to only be impending. 

So I stress out. I start to enjoy what I do less and less. 

I know that I could technically get myself out of this mess with my art. 

But do I want to do that? 

Do I want to subject myself to the hardest push of all and then fear burning myself out all together? What good would that do me? I don’t want to suck the joy out of what I love to do. I want to keep it alive for as long as I can.

I want to save my art, but I need to save myself. 

I was recently put through a very emotional trial with a friend of mine. I feared losing his friendship because of how self absorbed I became with my issues. It caused me to isolate myself and not seek out the proper help I needed. It alienated people I loved and made it seem like I was taking them for granted. That all finally exploded on my last weekend, and it was an insanely rough time. 

I did so much walking and so much thinking. More thinking than I can even recall doing in my entire life. I was finally at the end of it all able to address some of these issues and salvage a friendship I felt close to losing. I know what it’s like to seek proper help now, but right now I’m at a difficult impasse. 

I need to figure out if I’m staying in Oklahoma. If I stay here, I’ll be getting a part-time job to help with my social life and with my finances. I’ve been stuck in this house for so long. I need to get out of here. 

Then I have my second option, which is to go back home to New York and back to my old job. 

All of these decisions would be based purely on what I want to do to get myself back on my feet. What’s going to help my finances get back on track and what’s going to restore my sanity. 

Right now it’s a difficult decision to make. 

I’ve been telling people that I’ve been going through rough times on my art platforms, and you know… The shittiest thing that can happen from that is when you start losing support. People start un-following you, retracting their support, cutting their interest in you, and really that fucking sucks. 

I don’t know why people do it. Maybe they think the artist is just being lazy or something? These problems are much more than just the skin deep perceptions they’re able to conjure up. 

It just sucks. I feel so disconnected with my art. I wish I didn’t let it get this bad.

And yet I fear that people are still either going to not care, or maybe even welcome my demise. 

I’m on my computer watching all of these awesome artists doing their thing, wondering if they share a similar struggle, yet not knowing. Watching up and coming artists getting the start I wish I was able to get when I started. I’m reading that some people even quit their jobs to take on art full-time, and what a funny juxtaposition. 

Here they are getting ready to embrace the challenge I took on, and here I am getting ready to hit the pause button on it.

I don’t know.

I don’t know what my goal was in telling all of you this. Maybe I’m hoping people will get why this is so fucking hard for me. 

I know that the answers are kinda right there. 

Like… 

People telling you one thing or the other.

“Only do what you know you’re going to enjoy!”

and then there’s, “Branch out and reach a broader audience.” 

What if that audience is one you’re not interested in though? What if you want to succeed in what it is that you want to do?

People just kind of doom you at that point. It’s like, “Well then deal with the bed you made.”

It’s a shitty ultimatum. I’ve never believed in it, but that just seems to be this cold hard truth that people like throwing in everyone’s face.

At this point I’m not sure what to say anymore. 

Anyway. Thanks for reading this.

Now you all know what I’m going through and the important decision that lies ahead of me.

Just remember something.

If you ever decide to take on art as a full pursuit, remember that this might be what lies in store for you. Hardship, hurt, trial and error. 

You will probably cry a lot.

You will doubt everything about your every move.

You’ll face your future with enthusiasm, and then you’ll doubt the future all together.

Just make sure that whatever you do, you don’t do what I did. 

Find a community of people who are going to encourage and push you to be your best. Don’t try to take this all on your own. 

You will crash. 

And you will burn. 

Sorry to end it on a not so motivational note, but as I mentioned before, people like throwing the cold hard truth in peoples faces.

So here’s mine. 

Apr 19, 2017
  1. stormrunnerlee reblogged this from amazin-arts
  2. ask-vonbelfry said: Check your Discord. I’ve left another wall of text. I hope it helps.
  3. ask-vonbelfry said: I’m with QB. You’ve made me who I am today. You pulled me out of a self-made hell just by existing. You’re saying all these things I’m ridiculously familiar with… Hope. You need a glint of hope. I hope we can give it to you.
  4. qbalchemist reblogged this from amazin-arts and added:
    No matter what happens; You will always have my support.To any and all those that follow me (albeit few in number), this...
  5. flashpointsentry2 reblogged this from amazin-arts
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  8. amazin-arts posted this