Diary of a Pretentious Artist’s Girlfriend

“A woman is the full circle. Within her is the power to create, nurture, and transform.” - Diane Mariechild

As a recently turned 19 female artist myself, in a new relationship with a male ex-alcoholic artist of also only 19 who proclaims that he cured his severe ocd over night through treatment involving shrooms and molly and who also is severely judgemental of all art seemingly except his own and a few of his favorite artists from the 80’s, I feel as though women who like to feel their feelings and have to be in a certain periodic headspace to create art are often undermined in their identities as artists when confronting men who say they “need to make art every day just to stay alive.” I for one do not find this need and don‘t believe it’s a requirement to have that need to call yourself an artist. You can in fact only need food and water and music and friendship to stay alive and still be an artist.

Just the other day I was drawing with my boyfriend of a month and a half, the ex-alcoholic in question, who I met only about a month before we started dating. Initially, I found his interest in such a miscellaneous array of niche and esoteric media so charming, which I always do when encountering these types of boys. I couldn’t tell you why I’m attracted to them because I always end up feeling less intellectual regardless of the reassurance from the person of interest that I am in fact smart; nonetheless, I persisted in my pursuit of him. When was the next time I would meet someone (a guy nonetheless) who liked Pavement’s Terror Twilight as much as I did? After a few weeks of talking and bonding over the mutual fears and anxieties of being a brand new freshman in college I made the first move. It was late at night around 1 in the morning, and we were finishing up an hour long video of a man harassing strangers in public just by filming them and saying nothing but “I just wanted to take a video.” It was quite funny. The original had been taken down from youtube and we had to watch it on that internet archive website that I can’t recall the name of in this moment. It was not your typical first month of college hookup; He was about to send me to bed and I was sick and tired of the sexual tension between us. I asked him if he was interested in hooking up and he said yes and we kissed awkwardly for about 15 minutes and I ended up sleeping over in his dorm. As spontaneous and uncertain it was, I knew I liked him. I knew that if he didn’t like me in the same way I would be crushed. He kissed my forehead goodnight that night. I thought to myself, this man really likes me or he is deeply troubled and evil because you don’t just forehead kiss someone you don’t think you could fall in love with. I liked him a lot, I had this deep, undying curiosity about him. I still do, don’t worry. As unhealthy as it sounds reading a stranger’s essay about her own relationship online in this cynical voice, I see a future with this man whether it’s as a friend or as a partner. I get along with his intelligent mother, so that’s a plus. Now that I have our general beginnings explained, let us return to what inspired me to write this piece in the first place.

As sweet as this boy is as I’ve come to know him, everything that comes out of his mouth has millions of layers of wit and sarcasm. That’s not to say I don’t speak that way either about 90% of the time, but with him, it takes weeks of knowing him before you can start deciphering what he means by what he says or jokes about. And when he’s serious and talking about art in any form really, he’s very critical. He hates art schools, the idea of them at least - which makes it that much more annoying that he applied to CalArts and got in and I didn’t which may be why the tone of this piece is so bitter. I really wanted to go to that school. He got in and simply decided he didn’t want to go there because he didn’t feel that an institution of art had much to offer him; that he’s already so established and identifies with his art so much already that school would do nothing for him. To a degree I really respect that, but part of me feels like its a privilege to be that confident in your own art when you haven’t even mastered basic skills that the greats have. His art is very abstract. But CalArts accepted him and not me so I’m going to keep my mouth shut on the subject.

We were drawing together last week or this past weekend in his dorm, and I bring up the point that I really haven’t drawn or painted a ton within the past year. I always love to sit with my sketchbook for a while and express some images or thoughts visually but no inspiration has struck me lately the way it has in the past. At one point in highschool (sophomore year to be specific [god, I’m already talking about highschool as if it happened eons ago, as if a year ago today I wasn’t in the middle of senior year]) I was drawing every day for months, producing things that to me were actually original and interesting and really felt like me. Only my ex and my highschool friends and my parents had seen that version of me that one like my boyfriend might consider a “real artist.” Anyway, I bring up this point of not having been very active lately without including a convoluted explanation of my journey and relationship with art in the past few years, and he said simply that

art isn’t for everyone.

Naturally, I took a little offense to this while trying not to show it. I need art and part of me wants to believe that it needs me. That I have something to contribute to the metaphysical plain of the Universe’s collection of ideas and drawing and paintings. That what I am destined to create matters to something more than just me. That it matters to whoever’s reading this. To the parent who came to Orange County School of the Arts 2024 Visual Arts Senior Show. To the random who follows my art account on instagram. To the stranger who stumbled past a friend’s story repost of my art that one time. To anyone who’s seen my art on my main instagram. To the classmate who saw me creating it across from them on my desk.

He’s expressed on a few occasions that he’ll see people pursuing art and going for it who may be technically ‘good’ at it but that they should just let the dream die because their work doesn’t have any soul. I don’t get that. No one who makes art is being held at gunpoint to do it, they’re doing it because they can and should never be told that there work isn’t good enough conceptually, or too literal — why should anyone ever let their dreams die? Am I too optimistic? Am I not intellectual enough to understand what he’s trying to say? I look at my art and I look at his and I think to myself: is all of this technical skill that I gained through 6 years of art school meaningless if it amounts to nothing to this guy? Objectively, I am better at copying an image or colors or values down on a piece of paper to create a cohesive recognizable subject than him technically speaking. I guess what I mean to say is I’m good at art, but I’m not good at finding ways to use the fact that I’m good at art to make good art. Regardless, I think it’s cool that I try anyway. I think there’s something there. I know art history almost as much as he does and he thinks it’s better that he learned it all through his own research as opposed to me who took it through an advanced placement class. And I think a lot of the time with women something is there to be uncovered in our experiences through artistic creation, but when faced with a romantic endeavor with an equally as creative man who thinks he knows more about art than the woman it is discouraging. Create regardless.

Create regardless. That is my mantra for this month.