etherealsomething

[etherealsomething]

2/26/23

An Assignment for Sculpture I

(Context, Brian Morgan’s relative, Finck, made a marble egg that looks very similar to Brancusi’s Sculpture for the Blind and our assignment was to respond, as an art scholar, to Morgan’s letter asking why Brancusi’s art is in a museum and why Fink’s is not)

(My sculpture teacher read it aloud to the class, so I wanted to keep it here to remember it. I’m proud of it.)

(anyways… the assignment)

Dear Brian Morgan,

“...what is there about Brancusi that makes his egg a work of art suitable for a museum, and not the egg by Finck?”

Thank you for your inquiry. The debate of what qualifies as art is an ongoing question that permeates the work of all creators. 

When it comes to the work of your great-grandfather, Peter Finck, I am forced to think about the artisans and craftsmen from before the European renaissance. Throughout the medieval ages, art was created not by artists but by craftsmen working off their workshops' commissions. Art was not made by artists. The names of so many creators have been lost to time and replaced by the names of their patrons. But just because their art is not tied to the name of the creator does not mean that they are any less of an artist. The very fact that we can see and appreciate the beauty of their craft gives it the power to be art. 

Art–the very concept of it–is nothing if not unforgiving. Unfair, even. Ruled by the hyper-intellectualized and aristocratic nature of academia, art has always been defined by those in power. The societal connotations of Brancusi’s work have established an agreement on its artistic nature and I think this is the root of why his work lies in a museum instead of on the desk of his descendants.  

The institution of museums is built upon this idea of legacy. Legacy as in an intellectualization of art that stems from a creator's thoughts and ideas and their ability to fit into the ideology of ‘museum-worthy art.’ It's a heartbreaking reality of the art world. The works of Brancusi are built upon a lasting legacy that is ripe with ideas and commentary. Brancusi has created art with a foundational idea stemming beyond just the desire to create and sadly, the museum world may never uncover the ideas proposed by creators like your great-grandfather. 

It comes back to this idea of exposure, rooted in the elitist nature of academic art. There are most likely a near-infinite number of examples of artists just like Finck that have been lost to the sands of time merely because of their lack of exposure. The harrowing reality of art–museum art specific–is its inaccessibility to the public. Artists are forced to establish connections with other artists, critics, and scholars in order to root themselves in the canon of academic art. Finck may have never been given the opportunity to go to art school or make these connections, shafting him from joining the ranks of ‘museum-worthy artists’.  

Sadly, I feel as if my opinions on art and its value are not shared among many in the art world. But I’d like you to know. 

To me, art can be anything. Art is beyond what ‘belongs’ in a museum and it infiltrates the very fiber of humanity. Art stems from aesthetic mastery and the realization of ideas. The aesthetic and emotional purpose behind a piece of art is infinitely more important than the academic intellectualization of its ‘meaning’. I believe that Finck’s egg is equally as important as any piece in a museum, based strictly on its ability to inspire beauty. The aesthetic value of art is not something that can be objectively sought and if someone is able to find beauty in an object–regardless of its intention–then it should be treated as art. The moment something is given truly artistic care, dedication, and attention it becomes a work of art. Hell, even this computer I’m typing this on could be its own work of art if I gave it that authority. I believe that your great-grandfather’s egg has not been treated like art because it has never found an audience with people that can appreciate its beauty in an artistic way. 

I am a firm believer in the idea that anything can be art if given the power to be so. The generation of one's ideas of beauty and artistry are incredibly subjective, being altered by one's upbringing, one's culture, and one's background. What gives art meaning is being able to find meaning in it. Art, to me, is based on the aesthetic experience on the most individual level over intellectualism defined by any specific class. Just because artistic authorities have deemed certain pieces unartistic does not take away from their ability to inspire beauty in an individual, and to me, that is art. 

If I were a curator, I would love to include Finck’s work. You said, “..the egg of my great-grandfather has the smooth, graceful lines of an artist.” That is more than enough reason for this piece to be seen by the world. Your passion and belief in this piece give it a depth of meaning that goes far beyond the ideology of many artists being showcased in modern (temporally. With a lowercase ‘m’) museums. The fact that you find artistic beauty in this piece gives it the power to be art. 

I think the only reason your great-grandfather’s piece is not in a museum is that the very institution of museum-worthy art has not given it the title of the art, but I refuse to believe that such an institution has the ability to take away your individualized perception of Finck’s work as art. 

Thank you for your inquiry. I wish you the best.

Define art however you wish. 

#manuscript #writing #my writing #female writers #diary #assignment #art #what is art #sculpture #brancusi #art history

[etherealsomething]

3/8/23

The profundities of existence 

God, how I hate the complexities of life. I hate how the value of modern human existence is reduced to the amount of work and productivity one can produce. I feel like my body is aching for the moment when I can speak out and bask in the beauty of the world, free of any capitalistic desires. I probably sound like some pretentious leftist liberal arts student right now. I could honestly care less about politics. As a trans woman, I probably should. But I struggle enough with remembering what clothes I have in my closet—working memory and ADHD or what chronically online people call ‘object permanence’–let alone what people are signing into law in Washington DC. But that's really not what I want to talk about right now…

I wish my body could just melt away. I feel so stressed all the time and I don't even know why. I carry an invisible weight on my shoulders. My neck strains and yearns for release. My back aches from lurching over a computer screen, flashing with the lights of pseudo-educational nothingness. My calves are sore at the end of every day from holding a tension I didn't even know existed. 

Im constantly looking for a way out. A way to fall away into the void of relaxation. 

I want to run away and fall into a field of pink and blue flowers. I want honeybees to brush my cheek as I lie there. Basking in it. Taking in the complete lack of stimulus. 

Maybe that's what this is all about. 

Forced overstimulation. The modern world–fucking society–is built upon this desire for stimulation in all forms. Everything is moving faster. Social media is full of horrific examples of this. Like explosive cows locked in a cattle car, the internet has become this effective mental sabotage of stimulation. Tik tok, youtube, instagram, snapchat, twitter. They're all littered with videos meant only to ensnare you, draw you in, and trap you with their pretty colors and empty promises of entertainment. And it ruined my brain. Fried it. 

I like to say that the internet casts spells. 

You open up an app like running your finger against an inscribed glyph and you bear witness to tongues spoken only in these electronic tomes. And they trap you. Influencers are witches. The internet is a coven. 

God, I sound schizophrenic. C’est la vie. 

I think I believe in a god. Call it the universe. Call it a higher power. I don't care. I like the term ‘God’. It feels good to give it a name. And ‘God’ has such power behind it. It's riddled with over two thousand years of history. People have died for ‘God’. People have devoted their life to ‘God’. I don't think that proves its existence but it sure as hell proves its power. 

People seem to have an issue with this God. People seem to take issue when I say I believe in God. I think it’s because they think it's tied to the Judeo-Christian God; this “holy father” who created the universe and gave life to the first humans. To be fair, the God of the Old Testament is fucked up. That guy was crazy. Ruthless even. He sent fires and floods and angels that melted the minds of powerful men. He asked Abraham to sacrifice his son. He wanted to test his creation. Punish humanity for their power. But New Testament God is a little bit nicer. He got Mary pregnant (not necessarily very nice) with the messiah. Jesus was born to take the brunt of all of humanity's sins. He was sacrificed in place of all of mankind. So that was nice I guess. But I don't know how much I believe in this god. This antithetical, all-powerful being. I think my God is much smaller than that. It's more intertwined in existence. I see it in how snowflakes fall so peacefully. I see it in the roots of trees when they pop out of the ground. I see it in my friend’s smile. I see it in myself. I think my idea of god is more connected to the beautifully chaotic randomness of the universe. I believe in beauty. That is my god.  

I've been wearing a rosary as of late. The last couple of months I think–since the start of this year at least (it’s the beginning of March as I write this). I think it's tied me more to this idea of divinity. It consumes me. I feel it in my heart. When I get anxious or when I don’t know what to do with my hands ill grab the crucifix hanging from my neck. I already stated that I don't really believe in the Judeo-Christian god but I find the imagery compelling. I see Jesus as this iconographic figure of divinity in humanity. Proof that my idea of God is part of every human being. Jesus acts almost as this symbol, not for the repentance of my sins, but for the little piece of divinity found in each and every one of us. The idea of the crucifix fascinates me. It draws me near. This idea that one's belief in divinity could lead to such torturous violence and that Christianity worships this sacrifice. I'm not saying I don't find his martyrdom honorable, I just think it’s a bizarre figure to make the poignant logo of your belief. 

I feel the need to explain my relationship with god to its fullest extent. My beliefs. My doctrine. 

I believe in God. A god of beauty. A god of humanity. An energy so powerful that it penetrates everything. God is the detail you find when you look at something–anything. Not just see it but look at it. God is the emotion you feel deep in your stomach whenever you bear witness to something beautiful. I think this God rules everything, embuing it with divinity. It's what makes life worthwhile: searching for the divine. It's there, I promise you. And once you look for it, you'll start to feel it. This godly energy, the holy being that embodies the world around you. The beauty of it all must be purposeful and that’s why I think God exists. The universe needs this ‘higher power’ to imbue itself into the fibers of existence. 

This idea of God comes out in everything I do. A divine purpose that makes my life meaningful. This god has given me the ability to see the beauty of the world, to make beautiful things, and to bask in it all. When I sit and read my tarot cards I feel its power, not in the divination of the cards or in the magic of it, but in the very act of doing anything. Because what is divinity if not the power to experience existence? I charge my crystals at night because it's a beautiful thing to do. I sage my room because it gives it a beautiful scent. I walk in the rain because it’s a beautiful experience. I bask in academia and study because that knowledge is beautiful. Everything I do is an act of god. Because it’s beautiful.

#manuscript #writing #my writing #female writers #diary #god #goddess #divinity #spirituality #love #beauty

[etherealsomething]

3/11/23

Psychoanalysis

I've come to the conclusion that I am not a cathartic person. I don't engage in catharsis as much as I want to. Sometimes I have this intensely deep desire for a cathartic moment–one instance where all of my raw emotions come out, all at once. But instead, I think I’ve learned how to let my emotions out in a way where they come out little by little in everything I do. Think of it like water. My emotions are like keeping a sink just dripping in the winter to keep your pipes from freezing (something we always did in my Iowa home whenever it got too cold out) whereas catharsis is a holy dam breaking and releasing a flood of biblical proportions. For some reason… that flood is so appealing. 

I think it's because I used to have catharsis all of the time when I was younger. I loved to cry. I loved moments of intense emotion. And now I don't feel like I have those moments. Somehow I grew out of them. I don't know. 

I feel like my life has changed. So much and so drastically. Especially since I graduated from high school. I’ve become so much happier. But I also don't ever feel that sad anymore. And I kinda miss being sad. I need to stop running away from it. I think therapy would be helpful for that maybe.

I think I've definitely got some things wrong in my head. Wires crossed or whatever.

Let's psychoanalyze. 

First, I think I have a deep fear of my body, call it dysphoria (?). I think so much of my thought surrounds my body. What I wear especially. But also in my daily actions and interactions. I think I feel like I have to make people believe the fact that I’m a woman and so I overcompensate. Like, just today I feared watching a youtube video that was ‘too boyish’ in my mind because I thought if anyone caught me watching it it would take away their perception of me as a woman. I fear that if I'm not ‘feminine enough’ to be a woman, people won't perceive me as one just because of the body I was born in. So now when I look in the mirror I’m grossed out by my trans body. My boy hands. My weird legs. Because I see them through that lens. It's internal transphobia that manifests in my anxiety about my perception. 

I've got body issues methinks…

Ugh. it's so complex. I don't know why I derive any sort of pleasure from hyperanalyzing myself. 

Let's keep going lol.

Next, I think what I was talking about at the start of this essay (memoir? manuscript? chapter?) is just depression. Like… I don't think it's normal that I don't experience emotions like a healthy person. I feel like catharsis on a regular basis is pretty normal. Healthy people cry pretty often. They have good days. They can cry at sad movies. They don't answer “just peachy” whenever someone asks how you are. I think I've just grown such an intense mask to hide all of my bad (bad…) emotions that I’ve accidentally masked all of my emotions. Dulled them all back to a solid zero. No positive. No negative. Just zero. 

It could also be the Wellbutrin. I don’t know if I'm supposed to tell people that I'm on antidepressants. My parents have always been so hush-hush about mental health. I didn’t know my mom was on Zoloft for the entirety of my life until I was twenty years old. And I didn’t know my brother had his own assortment of mental issues until years after he moved out. In my family, mental health was just something you couldn't really talk about. Which is odd because my mom loves to bring up mental health-related issues… 

God, it's all Freudian, isn't it?

I think my mom is probably why I'm depressed. 

That’s enough analyzing for tonight. I'm high and I just want to watch skins. 

#manuscript #writing #my writing #diary #female writers #thoughts #girlblogging #high thoughts

[etherealsomething]

2/11/23

Ketamine 

Hi, world.

Ketamine is a wonderful friend of mine. She speaks to me in a way that interacts with my soul. She provides me with a deeper sense of understanding and insight. Tonight I met her in the bathroom of a shitty hole-in-the-wall venue and she taught me how to see god. It's days like this that I wish I could create a language only I could speak. Fuck dyslexia. 

Tonight was so odd. 

Ketamine is wonderful because it dissolves my body entirely. This thing that has generated so much anguish throughout my entire life, falls apart in her presence. It's beautiful. Tonight I felt as if I was melting in an uber. My limbs turned to liquid and my mind fell to pieces. It was as if all of the rampage in my cranium was silenced in a single moment only for me to exert the entirety of its energy in the dissolution of my atoms. I watched myself fall apart. Every molecule in my body decayed into static. The world became liquid. 

Or my eyes were just crossed. 

I love how fuzzy the world is when I'm on ketamine. Lights turn into this divine fur. Like the paintings of Duccio. God is among the human being. Everything is obscured into nothingness. The universe becomes one. 

It's the only time when my body truly feels like my own. It's beautiful.

Being.

Are we not one with god? Are we not connected to the universe? 

It's in the very fiber of our language. 

‘Human being’

Being.

The act of being is divine. To be is to exist. Existence is uniquely holy in its power. The very act of being able to define consciousness with a word as simple as “being” is phenomenal. It's incredible. It's the pinnacle of human evolution. 

Every language is built upon the verb 'to be'

It's uniquely human to be. To exist. To do. To be. 

Being. 

I love being. 

Ketamine is so fun. 

Ketamine is being methinks. 

#manuscript #writing #my writing #female writers #diary #thoughts #love #being

[etherealsomething]

[etherealsomething]

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[etherealsomething]

<3

[etherealsomething]

lana del rey for interview magazine (march 2023)

[etherealsomething]

No matter how much I sleep I’m always tired

[etherealsomething]

[etherealsomething]

Bride’s heart, made in the Netherlands, 1625-74 (source).

[etherealsomething]

Odysseus Elytis, tr. by Athan Anagnostopoulos, from “Maria Nephele: A Poem In Two,”

[etherealsomething]

1/18/23

“fear”

The day is Wednesday, January 18th, 2023. It's the beginning of my fourth semester of college. This was a semester I was deeply and truly excited for. For the first time in my life, I felt happy with who I am. I have been living as a woman in portland for the last few months and it's been so incredible for my mental health. This is the first time since I was a child that I truly no longer feel depressed. ‘Coming out’ as a woman has been like a new breath has been given to my life. The ground feels solid under my feet. The plants are greener. The sky seems to hum my name. And I feel happy. 

I haven't started hormones yet. I have a crippling fear of needles. I always have. Well, I guess not always. But ever since I was a child, I’ve had a chronic problem with fighting every time I’ve had to get a shot at the doctor. Just thinking about it makes my heart panic. Even now I can feel my arm grow weak. And I know it's an irrational fear, but it still penetrates my psyche in ways I can’t even comprehend. So that's why I haven’t started hormones yet. I’m afraid of the bloodwork. 

Or that's what I keep telling myself.

I think the real reason I haven’t started hormones yet is that I’m not out to my parents. 

I want them to support me in this new era of my life. The fact is that now more than ever I need their love and support. I want them to tell me they're proud of me for finding the strength to start this journey. I want them to tell me they still love me. I want them to tell me they love me even more because of this change. Maybe they always wanted a daughter. 

I hope they want a daughter. 

But I don't think it's possible for me to garner their approval. My parents have always been supportive of my queerness. Even though I’ve never brought a man home. But my mom says she's okay with it. I never actually came out to my dad. I just assumed he would know because I came out to my mom. It’s kinda been implied that I’ve always been the fruity one of the family. And it's not like sex is something we talk about in my household. 

Coming out to my mom as queer was pretty traumatic. 

“Oh, I’m sorry”

And I've already tried coming out to her as trans. Almost a year ago now, she came to Portland to watch one of the theater performances I was in. In this production, I wore a dress on stage. It was a beautiful black slip dress. It showed my collarbones in a way I liked. It made me feel beautiful. Then my mother saw me in this performance. And all of a sudden I felt so horrifically insecure in that dress. The next morning I decided I needed to come out to her. It didn’t go very well.

She slept in my dorm room because she didn’t have a hotel room for the night. Before I left for class that morning, I told her I was trans. And she told me no. She told me I wasn't trans. She broke down crying.

I didn’t go to class that day. 

She told me no. 

So after she left, I acted like that conversation never happened. She still used the wrong pronouns for me and she still called me by my deadname. 

I don’t think she’d be entirely supportive if I came out to her again. I don't think she’d be supportive of me using she/her pronouns. I don't think she’d be supportive of my new name. I don’t think she’d be supportive of me wearing eyeliner. Or dresses. So I haven’t said anything.

But I’ve been living as a woman. All of the close people in my life know me as a woman. They know me as Lux. Even at school, my professors call me Lux, and my school email is even registered under Lux. The last people to know have been my parents.

I'm currently being confronted with the looming reality that I may have to come out to them. And I wish I could stomp being afraid of them. I wish I felt that my parents would support me and love me through this transition. But I'm terrified.  

[etherealsomething]