No. 85 - Vulnerability is punk AF
Plus Taking Note LIVE!
Hi!
I’m posting again a little sooner than usual in order to make an announcement.
Before we get into the vulnerability, I’m excited to tell you about a local, LIVE, in-person TAKING NOTE: Creating Ourselves Through Journaling workshop at the warm and intimate Aunty Collective here in Victoria, BC. It’ll take place over two nights: Tuesday February 11th and Tuesday February 18th from 6:00 - 8:00 pm. You can register here.
Since my teen years, writing in my journal has been instrumental in helping me gain perspective and clarity, understand myself and others better, and come to terms with difficult issues or changes in my life.
Research shows that putting your unruly thoughts into language helps to tame and organize them, makes them easier to understand, and frees up mental resources that can be used elsewhere.
This workshop aims to provide you with tools to help you engage with your journal in a way that’s meaningful and generative, and if you’re new to journaling I hope to dispel any fears you might have.
If you have any questions about this, please don’t hesitate to contact me via my website, or reply to this email directly if that’s where you’re reading it.
Okay, let’s get vulnerable.
What follows is a lightly edited version of Feed the Monster No. 40 from May 2021, Vulnerability is Punk AF. That’s forty-four FTM’s ago! Or, in the parlance of the street, three and a half years. I was smack-dab in the middle of working toward my exhibit Life’s Work: A Visual Memoir at the time, and was making some breakthroughs in terms of relinquishing control and perfectionism in the artwork I was making. And I was feeling vulnerable. Please enjoy this blast from the past:
Vulnerability is Punk AF
Last month I “dropped” my new collage class download, and soon started to worry about how it would come across. Was I too awkward? I was definitely somewhat awkward. Did I focus on the right things? Was I funny where I meant to be, or did I come across as some weird freak? Truth can hurt.
I was feeling vulnerable.
I requested feedback from some people I knew who’d bought the collage class. Renée Layberry was one of those, and when I mentioned my feelings in an email she responded with “vulnerability is punk AF”. Turns out she made this phrase up, though I expected to learn it was the battle cry of every self-respecting Brené Brown fan or something. A meme, at least. I liked this new catchphrase so much I immediately wanted it for the title of this month’s newsletter, though I had no idea at the time what I was going to write.
Then I happened to start work on a wall-sized graphic memoir piece (see below) about my relationship with my mother, as part of my Life’s Work: A Visual Memoir project. You can see how creating this piece could make a person feel vulnerable—gulp. Making available my Collage Class video made me feel no less insecure. You make a thing… maybe a thing you’ve never made before. You take a chance. It’s not perfect. You put it out there. You feel a bit wobbly inside. You wait.
Note: As uncomfortable as it is, I never want to stop experiencing this.
I’ve found the response to Feed the Monster is greatest when I’m open about my foibles and vulnerability as a human being. This seems to be the stuff that touches people, that they relate to the most keenly. People clearly need to know they aren’t alone in making mistakes, not always being sure, and struggling with certain aspects of their lives. That they trip; that they cry.
It can take practice to speak freely about these things, but I’ve learned that far from being dangerous, allowing and showing vulnerability becomes a superpower that a lot of people miss out on by avoiding. People who seem to think that appearing infallible makes them infallible—or that they’re fooling anybody.
Nope. Pretty much the opposite is true.
As for the giant graphic memoir piece below… well yikes. Life’s Work: A Visual Memoir has mutated many times since it first germinated about a year and a half ago. Originally it was meant to be a visual memoir about my mother’s dementia and my difficult relationship with her that informed the caretaking I did. I wanted to show how I went from initial horror at having to deal with my mother and her affairs, to being thankful for being forced up that mountain.
Life’s Work is still about those things, but I’ve found it much harder to approach the mother-daughter relationship than the dementia stories. Partway through making the piece below I found myself thinking, “so maybe this one piece will suffice to illustrate my relationship with my Mom… no need to go on and on about it!” And maybe that’s true. Or it could be an indication of my discomfort: I fear coming across as feeling sorry for myself, or sensationalist. I keep thinking of the Philip Larkin poem This Be The Verse:
They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another’s throats.Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don’t have any kids yourself.
I mean, it’s boring, right? My experience is commonplace. I don’t want to whine about it, or lay blame. It became clear to me at some point that I wouldn’t be me if I hadn’t struggled to overcome certain adaptive habits of mind developed in childhood. And that dealing with the ways in which your parents fuck you up can create superpowers. I even began to see Life’s Work: A Visual Memoir as a tribute to my mother, though that surprised me and it certainly didn’t start out that way.
This wall piece was not pre-conceived. I was given a roll of 42” wide photography back-drop paper by Ted Grant and decided to put some of it up on the wall in case it gave me some ideas. Et voilà, I got the idea to do a super-sized graphic memoir piece, and painted a series of rectangles free-hand. But it stayed like that for two or three months with only the word “Presenting!” written in the top left-hand panel.
What ended up emerging has developed organically. I’m using a bamboo brush (the kind used for Chinese calligraphy) because it gives me very little control, therefore forcing me to stay loose. In other words, it prevents me from getting too precious about the painting aspect. I wanted to work quickly, without over-thinking. That way I was able to get lost in allowing the piece to unfold as it wanted to.
I pulled out all the tropes of “presenting”, “starring”, “once upon a time”, “dutiful daughter” and “wicked mother” to overstate the idea of this being a STORY… though a true story. But just a story—not a unique story—a story that’s taken place millions of times in millions of ways. This wasn’t something I did consciously, but I do think that’s why I did it.
The piece is not going to look like anything I’ve ever done before. It’s definitely very unpolished, and I’m okay with that. When I started painting portraits in 2015 with 100 Days of the Artist is Present, I got better and better at portraits, and of course there’s nothing wrong with that. But it became calcified and started to feel pretty stale. I appreciated having that skill, but I wanted to go somewhere portraits couldn’t take me.
Enter once again… vulnerability. Trying new things gives unexpected results that the old tried n’ true generally can’t deliver, and I seem to be developing a taste for that. Huzzah!
Pssst… the original post was written when the piece was half-finished, but I’m going to insert the finished product here:
💣💣BYE! THANKS FOR READING!💣💣
(PS, don’t forget about TAKING NOTE: Creating Ourselves Through Journaling at Aunty Collective February 11th and 18th here in Victoria, BC. Purchase here.)
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A couple of years ago, at my fiftieth birthday party - there was a wonderful jam of a bunch of us musicians that went on for a couple of hours. Some of my dearest musical compatriots were there, tunes were called that I did and didn't know, and we all plunged into them together. But as I've come to experience too often on Gabriola, there were many musicians who hung back because they professed not knowing how to join in on unfamiliar songs. And I hear that - because as I young person I learned via teaching methods and books, and was not trained to just jump in and wade along until I caught the current and swam.
Jamming was, however, the rebirth of my musical life as a 20-something playing in a band, writing music and revising old tunes, figuring out shit in front of other people, making mistakes, and getting past the feeling of vulnerability (or just accepting that it was there) so I could learn to make music in this new way. 25 years later, I am so grateful for this gift - that I had people around me who encouraged me, and were likewise stepping out of themselves into uncomfortable places to make new music and art.
Anyhow - at that party I was struck by the courage it takes to show up in a circle of strangers and play music, and how that courage is a kind of generosity because it allows others to do the same. And this is true for everything we put into the world - first we have to open ourselves up, then find it in ourselves (with the support of others) to step out - and with that we give to ourselves and others in the ultimate act of mutual aid, reciprocity, whatever we want to call it - that goes out into the world and makes more art.
I have been sitting with the mantra "courage is generosity" this week as I prepare two community offerings here on my island - both of which are pushing me out of my comfort zone. Allowing oneself to be and sit with vulnerability is where this all starts. Thanks for the writing and good luck with the upcoming workshops!
So stoked that this is happening....and at Aunty Collective! A beautiful welcoming space that is filled with positive energy. And like I'm not the type who throws around phrases like "positive energy" everyday. Congrats!