Things I'd Live For

On the eve of my first official vending event, on my first time printing my work en masse, on essentially my first time stepping out of my hermit hole since 2021 I find myself awake early this morning asking:

"Why am I doing this?"

I offer myself an abundance of the standard answers.

"An opportunity to have more people see your art"
"An opportunity to connect with other artists and see their works"
"An opportunity to make a couple bucks and learn how to approach the business of art from a new angle"

And while these are all valuable endeavors, rational and reasonable, something else keeps whispering just beyond the periphery of this very normal internal dialogue.

"It's going to be uncomfortable"

"It's going to be uncomfortable"

I am no stranger to imposter syndrome. A lifelong artist dipping my toes into a multitude of mediums and having moments of success and moments of failure both, I have questioned what I'm doing and why I'm doing it abundantly in the 30+ years since I picked up an art and thought "I could tell a story with THIS thing."

Decades of writing music and playing in bands, often feeling underdeveloped surrounded immense skill and better organized talent, a couple of years under a mask in a wrestling ring wondering if I was the only one panicking everytime my music hit, and many, many years of taking photos and shooting video uncertain if my work was valuable or if the sell was truly the gorgeous, charismatic humans willing to stand in front of my camera.

"It's going to be uncomfortable"
"Why are you doing this?"

In late 2020 my hair fell out. All of it. Head to toe. In about 6 months I went from cult leader beard with powermetal locks to remembering how nice it was to have sweat wicked by eyelashes and learning that actually what Id miss most would be nose hairs as hay-fever is a bitch just as cruel as the new dysmorphia settling in. I hated looking at myself in the mirror, I hated being seen, and I would rather set myself on fire than have a photo taken of what I'd become.

I used the privilege of living rural and working a job with 7 staff and very little social requirements to fall into myself. Very few beings saw me outside of my mourningberb, coworkers and several cats. I wasn't who I was and I definitely wasn't ready to embrace who this was.

This person wasn't confident, or boisterous, or ready to go out and "do the thing" as the former was. This person was quiet, nervous, and miserable. This person was sunk deep into the black murk of guilt, shame, and fear, struggling to grasp at anything to keep their head above the dirt, but not so ambitious as to try to escape.

It was simpler in the dirt.
It felt safer not to struggle.

~

When I started taking photos again it was in an effort to reconnect with why I made art in the first place: to tell stories. Unintentionally locked up in the social media mines, desperately smashing the pick-axe against the algorithm in hopes of the illusive viral diamonds had burnt me out on what has become "the process" and I had no ambitions to return to the that dark cave of statistically proven diminishing returns. I wanted to remember why I created.

Well, its been just about a year since "The Spectre" was published on this very site and I'm in a bit of a different place now.

"It's going to be uncomfortable"

Yes. It will. Good things are. Struggle is. Change requires it.

"Why are you doing this?"

Because I think there's a place in the world that I can play a role that is valuable.
A place valuable for me, to find community and arts, and inspiration.
A place valuable for others where I can offer my perspective, my knowledge, my presence and support.
A place where my inner dialogue can sit and listen to outer ones.
A place where I be criticized and appreciated, ignored and acknowledged, where people can see me as I am now, who I am today.

I spend a long time in the shadow of who I was, and tomorrow is a big step in accepting and embracing who I am now.

I am Erik, I am an Analog Spectre. I am analogous to a ghost of what I have been.
I am a storyteller and I am outspoken.
I want to share my art with the world and teach the world how I do it, so they too can share their art with the world.

I am uncomfortable.
I am doing it.
and I look forward to every moment.

-dsmsblk