Crowded Spaces/ A World of Trees
Lately I’ve been craving something new for my art, for my life. I want a small change to inspire me. I want something to obsess over artistically the way I did with DID for years in school. My mind keeps wandering to crowded places and to nature. Two opposing sides. I feel isolated and anxious or at peace and connected in each respectfully. But I wonder if there’s a connection? I don’t know why my mind is drawn to it. I want to paint crowded spaces, but replace people with trees, but why? What do the trees mean? Do they have to mean anything? To me, yes. I thrive off of meaning in art work especially mine. I rarely just paint to paint anymore. Though maybe I should. My mind feels as crowded as the spaces I feel so suffocated in. Thoughts of finances and the state of the country drown out my artistic spirit. I want to be inspired to political art, but it’s all just so depressing. I can’t pick up a paintbrush. My cat keeps me firmly planted on the couch.
I think trees are easier to read than people. Their hard exteriors match mine. They don’t talk much, but when they do their sound is beautiful. I can hear their voices in the rustling leaves and the water at their roots. Their songs carried by the birds in their branches and the chipmunks at their trunks. Talking to people on the other hand, albeit direct, is much harder for me. Maybe that’s why. Talking to the trees is indirect. I can speak and their answers come in the form of quiet respect and contemplation offering nothing but their shade and their wisdom. I can speak freely in the forest and not be judged. The trees don’t give me weird looks or impose upon me rules I don’t know how to follow. A world full of trees would be preferable to the crowded places I visit in my day to day life. Maybe I wouldn’t need my headphones or experience as many breaks from reality.
One of the parts of the system made a watercolor painting last year for a series we titled “Meet the Artist(s)”. It was of a ghostly figure of a dog on a path in the woods titled “Silly Little Mental Health Walk”. Calling walks “silly little mental health walks” was an online trend around that time by my generation making light of the begrudging fact that going outside helped our mental health. So we played off it for that piece, but walking in the woods, especially with our dog at the time was truely one of the only times I felt at peace and calm. There was nothing else out there except us. I could take my time and appreciate the woods around me. There was no expectations or pressure. No bending over for someone else. It was healing. Verses when I have to go to the store alone it feels like every eye is on me. I go as fast as I can so I can return to the refuge that is my home. Anything to get away from my fellow humans. Honestly, it feels like a stretch to call us ‘fellow’ sometimes. I don’t feel like I have much in common with anyone. It’s just me and the trees out here.
9/25/25
Seb (probably)