A Nevadan Ass
Dreamed 2007/5/17 by Wayan
NOTES IN THE MORNING
Off to my "Experimental Art" class--but it really isn't! The teacher's into industrial design and the students are commercial artists and product designers--except one. I draw dream comics. As they sing on Sesame Street, "One of these things is not like the others, one of these things doesn't belong..."
Not just a tough crowd to show painfully personal art. Showing it's a challenge. How can I let a whole class read a single comic in 10-15 minutes? I only finished it late last night, and printed one color copy. Even if I had time, I can't afford to print many. Color's pricy.
Solution: I lay out black cloth on a line of waist-high worktables, then a slightly winding path of scattered leaves--the 32 pages of Polygon Dreams: cover, intro, Try Angles, Pentalemma, City of Bees, Freedom Through Boxes with new intro (and in color for first time), Spirography my spiral bio, then my conclusions about shapes, and for a back cover, The Unigon.
Polygon Dreams cover |
Try Angles |
Pentalemma page 12 |
City of Bees page 3 |
Freedom through Boxes page 6 |
Spirography (author bio) |
The Unigon back cover |
Oh, they are experimental design--they explore how the shape of comix panels--triangle, pentagon, hexagon, square, spiral, and circle, respectively--affect the storytelling. And the audience. My teacher privately asked me to risk showing some comics to shake up his conventional students a bit. I don't mind the challenge--spurred me to finish the piece!
But... while it's a healthy stretch for them, does this critique shortchange me? Can they really assess such material intelligently? No. They struggle even to absorb such a massive ambitious project. Read? Skim? Just look at the pictures? I suggest "Read the intro and one short piece, then just look at the layouts."
My classmates cluster around City of Bees and Spirography, the boldest geometric pieces; Vic the teacher's favorite is Boxes, for its restrained palette and simple grid. It figures--Vic loves boxes and repetition. It's my unloved stepchild, for just those reasons--I find boxes dull. True, those airless constraints wrung deep confessions out of me. But any deeper than the lush fantasies of Pentalemma or the acerbic dream-oracle in City of Bees?
Just as my dream last night warned, the most negative comment is sexual: "the nudity and miniskirts in Pentalemma objectify women"... from a man. I ask if he actually READ it. No, just glanced! So he doesn't even know that woman in the dream was ME. Subject not object. I wonder if he's really bothered not by the skin but the fur; "women are mere animals"?
Oh, don't speculate. Let it go. Let him go. Them go.
The dream warned I do this--look for love & appreciation outside my own kind. I'm not just outside the mainstream; I'm not very human. Do I really expect kindred spirits among commercial designers? Or in this college at all? Get real!
NEXT YEAR
Cheryl & I broke up soon after. I was attracted to her strong animal energy--sohhh not human! But she needed a boyfriend glued to her at the hip; I need lots of quiet time alone. Too... feral. Hard to break lifelong outsider habits.
TEN YEARS LATER
Even then I suspected it was more than habit--it was hardwired autism. Now I know. A mutant gene gave me Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome; not all with EDS are Aspies, but all three siblings in my family have both EDS and Aspie perceptions.
It's genetic. I need DAYS of solitude. Oversocializing sickens me, literally. Much of what I thought was 'habit' or 'self-image' was genetic difference--and not gonna change.
I can either snap & snarl at the weird genetic cards I was dealt, or accept the vast gulf with grace. I dream I'm not human because, in many vital ways, I'm not. And never was.
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