Just TeeJay's Blog

The past year has been hard on almost everyone in some way or another.

I actually think that I fared pretty well through the actual lockdown (well, the first one…. personally I’m not convinced that it isn’t going to happen again but that is off topic). Turns out that I am pretty good at isolating and keeping myself amused for extended periods of time.

In November we started with the “we are going to close everything down again when ______________happens”. Then those things happened. Then the rules got changed. Then there were new parameters. Then it was a different story. Then one of the shops had to close. Then we were allowed to reopen. There has been SO much back and forth with no real answers.

Supplies have gotten more and more difficult to obtain and more expensive when we can find them. How much inventory do you stock when you don’t know if you will be open next week? How do you schedule appointments or plan for anything when everything is up in the air.

Is a tattoo really that important right now?

Random clients started calling and being abusive that they couldn’t schedule an appointment in person or yell at us because they couldn’t get into the studio (because we were following the state guidelines for being open now). I started to cringe every time the phone rang. Actually being relieved when it was a robocall. (I do understand that these people were not necessarily angry with me personally…. just needed to be able to vent as they are going through their own stuff…. but day after day it did get old and started to be more and more difficult to brush off).

It started to weigh on me. A whole bunch of other things then piled on top of the stress that I was no longer coping with well.

Emotionally I fell apart. It happened at the same time that the world was preoccupied with some National Events. I didn’t feel like I could reach out to the people that would normally be my support network as they were otherwise occupied.

Then the lease came up for renewal on my space in Piano Works. The space I hopefully and expectantly moved into in the early part of 2020. A place to hang my art that I had to get out of Whitman Works when they closed. A space where I could not only show my work and participate in group events – but create in a community space with other artists. It was to be a bright beginning.

Alas, these plans (like so many others) were derailed by the arrival of covid. I could not in good conscious re-sign a lease on a place for another year that I had been in less than 5 times in the preceding year. I had to get everything out of the space and find a place to store it.

I freaked out more.

I didn’t want to look at this pile of art that I had put my heart and soul into. I didn’t want to watch my cats nibble on the corners of the art until they were no longer presentable. I wanted to do something but I didn’t know what.

I decided to start getting rid of it.

I briefly thought about burning all of it.

But I wasn’t quite that far gone as to think I would be happy about that later.

I started packing the work up. Putting notes on the back of them and leaving them out in public places. I didn’t tell anyone I was doing this at first.
When I did tell someone they were very concerned. I told someone else. They were also concerned.
There was a certain cathartic element to what I was doing, but I did have to admit that it was the artistic equivalent of cutting in some ways. I was being self destructive, but it was making me feel better. And unlike cutting I was so very very much hoping that someone else would get to be happy from what I was doing.
I did promise that I would stop for the time being to examine my motives.

I had not heard from anyone that had found any of the art and I started to envision it having been thrown away or destroyed.

Then I got a note from Carrie.

She had found the Beatnik Kitty drawing.

She took the time to write me a really wonderful note. She appreciated the art.

Her note was so sweet and wonderful and exactly what I needed. I cried. I may be crying again writing about it now.

Thank you Carrie.

While I have stopped for the time being dropping the work off in the world until I better understand my motives…. You made things okay for me in a very dark time in a way that you will probably never really appreciate.

Thank you.

I am so glad that there are people like you in the world and I am so happy that one of my pieces found a home with you.

I continue to hope that there are other people out there that found the work and appreciated it but didn’t write notes. It’s okay because Carrie did.

Tomorrow is another day. Eventually covid will pass and the world will move on. Eventually the Sadness will be a memory again. But for today I have a reason to be grateful and a bit of my faith in humans has been restored.

~ by justteejay on January 14, 2021.

Posted in Art, drawing, introspection, TeeJay
Tags: Art, art abandonment, art drop, art therapy, artist, beatnik kitty, depression, gratitude, rochester artist