Intro
Its summer's end and like every end of this warm and brutal season I am listening to American Football's 1999 self titled album 'American Football'... For this first more formal blog post I wanted to talk about life recently, accompanied by some end of summer tracks (if I can figure out how to code them in..) For this blog post I recommend pausing with each section to listen to the following songs, no pressure to listen to the whole song though, but do take some time to sit with these songs. Think about your summer as I do the same.
"Maybe I've been wrong. Maybe my intentions are irrelevant. Honestly, it's not just for. We've both been so unhappy, so let's just see what happens when the summer ends"
New State... East Coast Summer...Art...
This summer was incredily lonely for me. Living in an all new state with no friends can really do something to a lady... After getting my job at a local arts summer camp, my life became a cycle of two modes: sleep and work. I found my mental health worse than its been in a while, lots of self demeaning cycles. My temporary escapes from it all were late nights spent in my studio. Out back in my parents home sits a two story shed where I set up an art studio. The begining of summer came with a desire to make as much art as possible and sell it on my etsy store. Last summer I had managed to do quite a lot with that path so I decided to give it another go. After two weeks of constant and intense work I created a small gathering of items I was proud to sell, so I put it up online. I waited, I waited for a while. After the end of june I had recieved only one order from my shop. I was pretty discouraged by this and by this time I had already committed to my job. So I gave up, I closed the store. I honestly didn't expect much from the start but after friend after friend expressing their interest I had at least hoped that more orders would come through. Now that I look back on it, I could of done a better job of selling myself. Really putting myself out there, making the big leap to put it all into the marketing. But I soon realized that that sounds like hell! As an advid hater of social media I just could not get myself to really try and sell myself online. The stress and effort it would take to practically gamble on if the algorithm would take it. I just couldn't get myself to do it. I am an artist. I love making art and I always want to share what I make. But after growing up posting my art on the internet, I can't see myself doing that anymore. If you grew up posting your art to maybe 50 followers for years, the algorithm never taking your work, you probably understand that it can felt like you were doing something wrong. As if your art isn't good enough. I just can not continue to let social media affect me this way! I'm diging my own grave! So I gave up. I deleted instagram off my phone and blocked it for certain hours on my computer. I posted a few times to tumblr and surprisingly some of my work got lots of feedback, but by that time I had realized what I wanted to do with my art for a while. I was going to make art for me and for my school work. I was tired of chasing the internet spotlight and I trully felt that I did not deeply desire the need for a spotlight. I have been perfectly happy when I share my work with my friends, they give me the feedback I need and admire. I do not need 10,000 likes on instagram to validate my art. I just need to make something I am proud of. Share it with those who actually matter to me.
This has been my workspace for the summer, its been kind to me but I wont miss it.
"But I want to make something good...I want to make something better..."
Baseball
I fell in love with baseball this sumemr. It sounds silly, I know! I haven't been interested in sports since I was a kid, so why baseball? and why now? Through my isolation this summer I found myself down in the living room late at night sitting next to my mother asleep on the couch and my father watching the Phillies play late into the night. It was at first something we would have on in the background as I talked to my dad about my day or what my plans were for the next morning. But soon I became enthralled by the sport. SO it wasn't too long till my dad mentioned randomly that we should go see a game. The local minor leauge team was playing that evening, so we went. I felt out of place at first, I was some gay nerd at a sports game, I wasn't supposed to be here! I belong in a locker! (im kidding) My nerves were high, I hadn't been to a ball game since I was a kid... But the food was oh so shitty (in a good way) and no one gave a shit if you were paying attention or not. I started to relax, theres no stakes here, this is a minor leauge game. No one is gonna loose the world championship. I started to realize the real fun of it: just hanging out. Yea they had kids activites to keep morale high but it was just fun to sit there and watch how many ways a guy could throw a ball super perfectly or horribly and get thrown out of the game. It didn't matter who won or lost, it was just fun to be there. I could totally zone out and just watch a bunch of dudes hit a ball with a bat really hard. If you are ever looking for something to do on a weekend I recommend figuring out who your local minor leauge baseball team is and giving a game a try.
my second baseball game!
"I’ve discovered more and more of this world that I’ve been calling mine. I don’t care what it takes. Blood, sweat or all my time..."
The MP3 Player
I have been using my old ipod for a while now. I use it to play music offline and try not to use streaming services. For many years my dear aunt payed for my spotify premium account, it had been maybe 10 years at this point. I remember staying home from school the day she set up my spotify account, telling my mother that my 'stomach hurt' and I spent my whole day in bed exploring the wonderfull world of having every song ever at the tips of my fingers. In April, Bethy passed away from cancer. I won't go into my grief much, its not something I'm ready to share. But I will say that a stupid spotify account is one of the things that kept me so deeply connected to her. On a random day in early june I opened my spotify account to find it at its unnatural, unpaid free version. It hit me hard I will say. It was a sign she was really gone. But I had to continue. I realized with my ethics on socail media and streaming platforms it was time to make the shift away from spotify. I brought out my old mp3 player which had not gotten much use since then and updated my downloads to the device. I have already aquired a pretty heafty mp3 collection as I had downloaded tons of cds in the past and am an advid bandcamp lover. So I made the switch. I use the music app on my phone to compile my mp3s but when I dont want to use my phone my mp3 player is usally charged and ready to be used. I think one day I will write more about the ethics and concerns I have with streaming sercives but for now I wanted to talk about my love for the device and what brought me to use it now. I still have my music and have found new ways to discover new music. I like to search random things on bandcamp, I also love sites such as last.fm. Even if I dont use streaming services anymore its a great site to be recommended new music. I finally love to ask my friends about the music they listen to! Its a wonderful way to explore your friends interests and personalities. For mp3 recommendations I suggest the Sandisk Clip, which is the one I recently bought and have been fully enjoying. They are cheap and somewhat easy to find on ebay! Ebay is great place to find old ipods (even though their prices have been going up due to the revitalization of the ipod) or just other gently used mp3 players. Let me know if you find anything cool out there!
the sandisk clip sports plus, my current mp3 player of choice
Outro
Thanks for reading this lengthy post, I have a lot to say and tried to condense it as much as possible. I hope to continue onwards with these posts but I am moving back to school soon so there may be a short gap. Thanks anyways and much love as always. -Z
