For my first bridge project in studio and seminar, we were asked to create two images, diptych style, both of myself, one as an old version and the other of as my future projected avatar. In both images I was required to have an object present that served as a memoir object. My avatar had a mission that was fuel by the memory my object held. My mission was to guide and help others finding themselves while simultaneously trying to figure who I truly am.
This is one of the most personal and challenging projects I have encountered thus far in my academic career. I was forced to truly evaluate and analyze who I am: past, present and future, then synthesize all this information and create a visual piece to accompany my write up. This project took a lot out of me, both mentally and emotionally. Being that I self identify as a trans-man and someday want to be an advocate for my community, I instinctively choose to do a project that focused on my transition. Going into this, I knew I would be bringing up many emotions and thoughts that would trigger me into an emotional spiral. Yet, I still took on the workload, in the midst of just beginning my journey on testosterone.
I am now at a place where I have, for the most part, control over how I allow my past experiences, thoughts, and emotions to affect me. However, I am in a very sensitive spot when it comes to my dysphoria and I honestly won’t be over this until I have all my surgeries completed. With that being stated, as I write this, it is extremely frustrating to me that I can’t live in the body I want and I have to occupy this vessel that I feel no attachment to. I can feel my blood pressure and body temperature rising, while my sweat glands begin to over work themselves, as I sit here and type all this out. But, I am learning to live with what I have and try to learn to navigate the world until I can finally say I am free.
My key takeaways from this project were more geared towards my personal growth and development, mind, body and soul wise. Rather than, things that could help me as an artist and in my creative field of work. The one thing that has stuck with me the most and I came to understand is that in order ro get to where I want to be, I can’t just sit there and do nothing. That should be basic common sense. However, hearing one thing and seeing it written out on paper, especially in my own handwriting, have two completely different ways of affecting me. By have allowed myself to physically compare my then current character traits and features to who I wanted to be, make things clearer. I had to actually do something to get from point a to b. What good was sitting around telling myself that I’ll change, when they’re was no action to back it up, or even a plan to get into action. I knew I couldn’t control or force all the outcomes I wanted, but there definitely were a handful I had completely control over. That is the very moment I learned ‘new levels, means new disciplines’ and ever since then, that had been one of the mottos embedded in my being. I knew I wanted to level up, I knew I wanted to become a better man. But I had to work for it in ways I hadn’t before, even if that meant stepping outside of my comfort zone. I would get nowhere by continuing to follow the same structure I had already instilled in me. In addition to training myself for new disciplines, I learned that It’s okay to not be 100 percent yourself all the time.
I wasn’t quite satisfied with my finished product, being that it was illustrated instead of photographed as I originally intended, for multiple reasons. The main one being at the time I didn’t think I was anywhere close to the representation of who I want to be and look like in the future. I know I can’t tell or control my transition, so I have no clue what I would truly look like. All I knew was the Dash in that moment was not who I wanted to represent the Dash of the future. In addition, I was just starting off in my journey with testosterone and was very insecure about my body as a whole. My features were strongly resembling of those connected to “feminine” ones, nowhere near the idea of masculinity that roamed my mind. Even though I’m still nowhere near what I want to physically look like, I am at a place where I feel comfortable using photographs of my current body.
Looking back, I wish I would’ve put way more effort and love into to this project. However, I just wasn’t in the correct mental state to truly take on this challenge. This semester I hope to put all of my feelings into my work, whether they be filled with pain and sorrow or happiness and joy. The telling of all my emotions are critical to my community and the people in it. There’s three types of humans in the world. Ones who dwell in their emotions, to the point where they lose all self control. Others, who try so hard not to acknowledge their feelings and thoughts, and still somehow end up drowning. While the rest allow themselves to truly feel their emotions, then manifest magic. From here on out, magic is my tool ready at hand.