Does passion die?

I've battled with this question quite a bit lately. The main reason I'm wondering this is because I feel like I'm at some sort of fork in a road, perhaps it's just my imagination and perhaps it's hesitation, fear or who knows?

This past semester in school was my first semester back into sculpture and thinking truly as conceptually as I would like to. I feel however, even though I was deep in my thoughts with my work, and convinced that what I was doing mean't something at the time I was doing it, it all fell flat when it came to my grades or the responses I got.

A thought that's been gnawing at me lately and I haven't confronted it fully yet. The thought is, what if I'm not an artist but just an appreciator of art? What if I value other people's thoughts, feelings, depictions more than my own?

I have too much on plate when it comes to the reality of my life. How far do I have to leap for art in order for it to be worth something to me, and others? Do I relinquish my sleep, my sanity, my eating, for something that in the end is just a matter of opinion?
People always tell me, that opinion is just that, but I can't get past understanding how opinion still holds so much sway in everything from grades to the shoes you wear and in what flies or dies in this world. How can I say it's nothing, when it's everything?

My relationship with art has felt strained, and forced, not in the sense that I'm forcing myself to be an artist, but I have this idea that I will never scale with anyone ever, so what is the point of my voice being heard? I do think I try, but is it worth the energy if it always falls on deaf ears?

If I were to try and answer my own question I would say this: Passion doesn't die, but it can lay dormant. The choice of dying with it dormant is all yours, but how do you wake it?
Are the people whose opinions I hold so greatly worth anything at all? Is a grade, just an opinion?

Society has a way of fucking itself over, and then people wonder why they're so fucked up. Make it stop.

Wrapped Up Dead Fish

I have been quiet, or at least it feels so.  For a while I have felt like speaking a truth has just been painful.
Too painful to be worthwhile. I always seem to end up crying and well crying in public is not exactly something I want to do, or care to do. I don't want to be "that person". I treat myself like I am "that person".

I found that lately I just cloth myself in whatever is convenient and doesn't accentuate - me. The more I hide myself the less I have to deal with the things that bother me about myself, or what bothers people about me.
I can be quiet and I can just slip away without anyone noticing.

It's startling when I talk to people who love me, like family, or friends. They get excited to see me, or be around me, which is a wonderful thing however I haven't been in a place of excitement for myself lately. What once felt like love from people who cherish me, suddenly feels like people drowning me. I am told left and right what I 'should' or 'shouldn't' do . I get lost in the sway of left and right, exhausted and dizzy. I just leave. I'm happy I'm loved, but I'm not happy with being smothered by it.

I'm 28. It's painful saying it, not because I feel old, but rather because I feel like I'm 16, and still being told what to do. Maybe I've just given my identity away to other people. The common saying "going with the flow" - I was once told there was a flipside to that, which is that "only dead fish go with the flow."
It's been a while since I've felt like the dead fish going with the flow.

A couple of weeks ago, I was attending several student presentations for school and by the end of all of them I realised that I felt like I was choking on air. My throat was tight, and I felt like I was about to just burst into tears for what seemed like no apparent reason. Teachers were trying to make conversation with me and I was trying to dash out as quickly as possible so I could get home and just exhale.

While people presented I kept feeling like a blanket was being put over my face, or that I was in a straitjacket. I panicked.

I'm doing a sculpture piece/video piece on being wrapped up. It has many many connotations for me, but I'm sure when I get there and present, it will appear as though I "half assed" it. What is said in my silence, or introversion could never equate to importance. I'd like to think it does, but let's be real here for a moment, people say they need to hear everything, but when they do, they just try to smother it. So what's the use of being honest when you're just going to shame it?

Who,What,When, and Where? (How Am I this Person?)

"Why are you like this?" I remember being asked that when I was 16.

"Are you a Muslim?" funny I was asked this when I was 13 by mother and again at 17 by a girl from my school.

"You can't be 100% Arab, are you sure you aren't Indian?" I was asked that 17 as well. 

Guess what? I have a solid answer to one of those questions: Yes, inbreeding.

Why am I like this? Let's define the "THIS" shall we:

1. Not wearing a headscarf

2. Opinionated towards customs and traditions

3. Opinionated towards political beliefs

4. Not particularly religious

So my answers come with some form of self censorship because believe it or not, I do agree with an "Arab" and "Islamic" custom of keeping others privacy "Istir 3ala '3airak" (Arabizi) to translate that it means "To "curtain" upon someone else". (I don't always agree with this sentiment though)

When you're a kid you live in the bliss of your own ignorance. When you get older you begin to figure out things aren't exactly how they seemed at all. Here are my answers:

1. I don't wear a headscarf because I don't believe that I should have to wrap myself up if a man doesn't. I'm not owned by this person, I'm not a possession. I don't believe in keeping the "freshness" of my beauty for someone else. I don't believe by not wearing a headscarf I'm "fair game". I don't believe women who wear the headscarf are necessarily modest, or uphold modesty. I don't believe it hides your beauty, and I don't believe it shields you from rapists, or abusive men. I don't dress like a hooker, I don't act like a hooker, and I'm not asking to get looked at. Plus don't men get looked at too? I can keep going if you want. I'm not disrespecting other people's comfort, or personal reason for wearing a headscarf, my mother wears one, my aunts wear them, they feel secure, they feel like they are a part of their culture or tradition, they are happy, they can be fashionable with them.. etc etc.. it's just not for me

2. Customs and traditions that no longer serve the benefit of your people, that can be very detrimental psychologically as well as physically - should be abolished the moment that realization is made. Abolished maybe a strong word, so here's the sugar coated way to put it "Not everything is everyone's business". My marriage, my hymen, my body, my life. FUCK YOU.

3. Not everything is black and white, it doesn't take a genius to figure that one out. A King is the sugar coated version of something that rhymes with Operator. 

4. I can remember the day someone told me that all non Muslims go to hell unless they are REALLY REALLY good or translation - as close to being Muslim as possible. That wasn't going to fly in my brain because I loved my Thursday Mom so much, and I had met so many nice Christian people, that honestly have treated me better than my muslim family and friends. 

Let me top off this nice glass of lemonade by adding a few more things:

- Gossiping old ladies and aunties who feel they have a say in someone's life when they don't even have a conversation with them can go role play Dumbo with their old lady skin. 

- Polygamy - only works if everyone is HAPPY about it.  Which from my experience has NEVER been the case and has made the children of ALL those marriages into unhappy adults. So again UNLESS ALL ARE HAPPY AND DO I MEAN FUCKING ECSTATIC ABOUT IT IT'S NOT GOING TO WORK.

You know what the biggest joke of all is? I spent most my life in a Muslim Arab society, and the only reason I ever strayed away is because of the people themselves and their contradictions. So if you are looking to give me crap about my choices here's my answer: YOU BROUGHT ME HERE

P.S. SHORTBREAD WAS RESTOCKED

Oh Passion Where Art thou?

Here we go again - the start of another semester of school and well, let's just say we're off to a turtle paced start. It's funny how you can wish and hope as much as you like at New Years for energy and pizzaz in your life and well you just don't get it that way do you?

That right there is what it really looks like to start a semester. ANYWAY - I'm going to keep this post a bit shorter as it is more of a "QQ" post than anything. On to the true topic floating in my mind:

Since I've been back to Cornish I've noticed the shift in interest in the style of Art taught or rather just floating around in the atmosphere. Representational work, more focus on the human form, and working incredibly large are just some of those changes I've noticed. I'm not saying it's a bad thing - I just don't think it's everyone's niche. I've felt more like this bacteria or a person whose door is knocked on by a Jehovah's Witness every weekend.

It saddens me very much that I came back to Cornish with the incentive of getting back on my conceptual bandwagon only to find that it's long gone. I often ask myself if I truly deserve to be there at all because I'm not sure I'm welcome, not just as a conceptual artist but as an international student. I don't want to have to wear a shirt that says I'm not from here but my most memorable experiences since I've been back when it comes to being the "Alien" are these:

1. Maybe the work you're making isn't for this audience. (Maybe this audience should get off their Hipster High Horse)

2. I was at a meeting for international students and I expressed my stress over having more classes than I usually take, and I was told by a staff member "Being stressed is part of the Cornish Culture". (If I get an ulcer or cancer or a heart attack - I will sue. Just because it's "Cornish Culture" doesn't mean it's OK.)

3. I expressed that I paid more to be here as an international student because I assumed I had to pay more than local students. Turns out the tuition is the same but scholarship access and loan access is not, so YES I DO PAY MORE TO BE HERE. 

I came back to Seattle SPECIFICALLY for Cornish. Print Studio X with Dawn Cerny has been the only class to not shit on me while I've been here. 

In response to those who think I might be sitting on my High horse and making blind judgments that only apply to me - You only live once and I only have so many chances to do the things I love considering my social background. I want my moneys worth and I want to live healthily without feeling like someone is just waiting to pull the rug out from underneath me. Is it so wrong to express that to the applicators of your stress? I don't want my stress to be the death of my love for Art and right now it is truly starting to feel that way.

To each their own I guess.