Bad Taste. (108 Dead Fish St)

So this one time, a blogger that i was kinda sorta trying to befriend mentioned that my art work was quite possibly IN BAD TASTE.

After the initial MORTIFICATION, i got angry. Then HURT. Then back to angry. Surely, i would not have been offended if it had been the wealthy ladies at the Local Parish Art Guild. I would have expected it...see it has happened quite often. However, I was seeking approval from this person...i imagined that if I branched out..reached out, you know, something would happen. Something different.

Despite the positive responses I got from several people that bad taste comment stung and stood out in my mind.

I paint what I have felt and experienced and a good deal of that has not been "socially acceptable" or in "good taste"..I just can't apologize for it anymore. As a matter of fact, I really never should have apologized for it in the first place..but  my particular personality....made that inevitable. My imagination is what it is and at various times it was all I had. Creating this imaginary world that mirrors reality was a coping mechanism as much as it was an ACEDEMIC AREA OF STUDY...and too bad i became unbalanced and retreated too far into it...

so far that reachng out is, at times, terrifying.

Cyber communication seemed less frightening. Made my heart race less....

The more "well" i get, the more i can see how "sick" i was in the past. And there are flickers of regret for  the time I could see as wasted. However when down in that deep dark cave of collarbones, ribs, deafening hunger and rotten flesh images..a pit of despair, depression, anxiety, i gathered, out of the muck, jewels. And though they made be shaped odd and possibly in bad taste, I wouldn't trade them for  a shiny photoshopped manicured  waxed diamond. I am what I am, and that includes goodness and  love and most importantly kindness and Honesty. And honesty includes, sometimes, things that are not necessarily Media Approved Pretty.

This curious decaying fish reminded me of  that comment..about the bad taste. Bc i saw a creature that was a cultural symbol for "life" or "birth" decaying on the bank. I was intrigued by the scales drying texture and the silver white color....so beautiful. So repulsive. So REAL...I feel an overwhelming love for all of God's creatures and their natural life cycles and the suffering that occurs in all of the life forms on earth.  It is all bundled up in my world view and if it sometimes seems that i say or paint things that are in bad taste...well i really don't mean to be offensive. I only am being real..which is pretty much what i expect and admire in other people even if it does not match my exact outlook.

In spite of my laid back silliness and cynical sarcasm, I can at times be too serious...and i can be too sensitive and take things too personally...And I attempt to balance that and lately it has become easier.  Becomes sometimes a dead fish can spark a symbolic liturgy for nature in my head but sometimes a dead fish is just a dead fish.