Tag: art

Health & Lifestyle · Nostalgic Posts

Drawings in the In-between

Beth DeFriesLeave a comment

I used to walk between the L and the 1 train via the F, M platform in the 6th Ave/14th street subway transfer passage every weekday morning on my way to work from Williamsburg to the West Side. It was routine – automatic and got me from 6th Ave to 7th Ave to catch my connection. Most of the time, I was too lost in the realm of daydreams or looking forward to getting back to reading my novel to pay much attention to my fellow sardines on the conveyor belt of dress shoes plodding along grimy concrete tiles. One day, however, I found myself paying attention by accident, while looking at the ankles of the person walking in front of me, noticing I was seeing those ankles not as skin-covered tendons, muscles, and bones, but as black and white sketched pencil lines on drawing paper. Strange. Cool.

Fascinated, I tried to pencil sketch the rest of my view of the person attached to those ankles in my head on my three minute walk through the in-between, but it was hard to get beyond the ankles with them walking so quickly. On my way home, I did it again, walking the pass-through from the 1 to the F, M platform to the L. I continued to notice peoples’ ankles on my commute on multiple random occasions, each time, not even noticing I was doing it at first, like automatic flip books of pencil sketched ankles and heels walking along the in-between pavers in real ballet flats, loafers, heels, oxfords, and flip flops.

This subconscious turned conscious phenomenon started happening after I attended a few life drawing workshops in the city through the Drawing America program. I had been missing the mindless exercise of timed drawing, the translation of reality to art, the feel of good posture and soft 2B pencil on drawing paper. Looking at the model as lines and shading is a learned, turned automatic skill from my art training in college. I miss the feel of making art in a studio a lot lately. Creative spaces really do fuel creativity.

Lately, I feel like I could cover the walls in tubes and tubes of paint with no rhyme or reason other than because it would be pure fun.

I guess I’d prefer the world to be art sometimes. I certainly seemed to on my city commute all those times through the in-between. It made the gray world more beautiful and animated, more strange and interesting. A brain that thinks in art can catch you off guard in the best way and I entertain it every time I notice it happening and let my imagination run wild like a Mummer through a convent.

I haven’t drawn pencil ankles in the real world in a long time, but I have translated memories into words and to me, that’s sort of the same feeling, if that makes any sort of sense. Even if it doesn’t, don’t worry. Sometimes things you can’t explain or understand can be the most beautiful. Documented murals of letters, words, punctuation, mixed in with me like paint with plaster, presented in a forum for the open minded. Am I art? Perhaps. The reviews are mixed, but I’ll always have the pencil ankles in the in-between, propelling me toward creative pursuit.

Poetry

Watered Down Whiskey

Beth DeFriesLeave a comment

I take a sip of watered down whiskey.

Honey sweetness coats my tongue

And climbs my palate walls,

like a spell of rain on rewind.

Ginger heat slides down my throat

And spreads across my chest,

A fermented shield beneath my skin.

Spiced warmth seeps into my armor

And I am fortified with soothing calm.

The sensation of the aftertaste follows,

A pleasant burn that lingers.

Thoughts relax and the world warps,

Viewed through a curved lens.

Apprehensions subside, the words easy to find,

And the impossible is a matter of effort.

Synapses twinkle,

Transmissions fire,

And there are too many ideas to write down.

I hardly know this me,

This artist whose craft comes easy

Temporarily.

And I think perhaps I owe this burst

To the sips of watered down whiskey.

Health & Lifestyle · Mental Health · Minimalism

The Bully in your Closet

Beth DeFries1 Comment

Growing up, I often had negative perceptions about my body and it took me a really long time to love the way that I look. I hate to admit it, but I still have negative body image perceptions sometimes, though much less frequently. An unexpected side effect of creating a more minimalist wardrobe was learning how to identify some of the triggers for these negative thoughts.

One of my big triggers is aspirational clothing lurking in my dresser or closet – those jeans that fit perfectly everywhere but are so tight in the waist that they inhibit digestion, that blouse that gaps in the front no matter how I safety pin it, or the halter dress that highlights my armpit squishies. I find myself thinking, if I only lost some weight, I could fit into these items comfortably and if I can fit into these items comfortably, then I will be beautiful; I will be enough.

What I have found the truth to be is that when I have lost the weight to be able to fit into aspirational clothing, it has only lasted temporarily and that for that temporary duration, I have been in a state of perpetual hangriness. Starving your way to aspirational clothing also means that all of your other clothes that you wear often and that make you feel good and beautiful would then be too big. Why sacrifice feeling good in a majority of your wardrobe just to feel good in a couple of items that drained so much of your self-worth for so long? Get those items out of sight. The trade off makes no sense to me now and I only wish I had realized it sooner.

When I come across aspirational clothing in my closet, it takes guts to confront the bully hidden in the waistline, zipper, or buttons down the front. I find that I allow my aspirational clothing to put me down for a while before I even notice that it is draining positivity from my daily routine of getting dressed. Once I realize, I work past the guilt of the purchase or the time that it has spent in my dresser or closet, and recognize that I have learned a valuable lesson from it about what does not support my body and mindset well. Then, I confront the item and the emotions attached and oust it to the donation pile. Good riddance!

As a teenager, cultural representations of beauty really fucked with my self esteem. I used to collect Vogue magazine and thought that being beautiful meant being stick thin. My body doesn’t get stick thin. I’m not proud to say it, but I tried very hard to test and disprove this theory. I remember an influential quote of Kate Moss’ from when I was a teenager, “Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels,” and now, to that, I say, have you tried the Lindt 78% dark chocolate yet? It tastes better than skinny feels, to me.

I started learning to love my body in college when I was studying art. I took a life drawing class my senior year which involved drawing nude models. These models came in all shapes, sizes, colors, ages, and genders. At the end of class, we would walk around the studio to look at the interpretations of the model and it was fascinating to see the variance in the drawings from easel to easel.

Some students drew the models with ideal proportions and some drawings were more abstract, despite us all having learned how to establish proportions and perspective from life to paper. I learned to see the human body as marks on paper, as shapes, shadow, light, and negative space. Even more fascinating was how most of the models seemed completely comfortable wearing nothing, standing on a platform in the middle of a circle of easels and watchful eyes. There was no judgement in the art studio. There simply was no time for it when the professor quickly increased the time of the different poses from thirty-seconds to two-minutes to ten-minutes and on to twenty. The body became scratches of charcoal or pencil on paper and together, those scratches created something beautiful and unique.

My pared down wardrobe has taught me what I enjoy wearing and how my clothes can impact my mood and mental health. When I open my closet, I see color, texture, patterns, prints, and shine. I smile when I get dressed in the morning because I know that my closet it mostly full of clothes that support me in being the best version of myself for whatever that means today. And when I come across something that does not serve that basic function, I thank it for the lesson and say goodbye.

There is no perfect body type. Beauty comes in an endless variety of forms and your form is included in that spectrum; I am absolutely certain of this. If you are struggling with negative body image, you are not alone, and it can feel impossible to feel like you are beautiful and enough, but know that you are. It is difficult to accept others telling you that you are beautiful until you are able to embrace it yourself. 

Aim to be healthy, not just measured by a number on a scale, but in a way that supports your mental health too. And for the love of all that is good in this world, do it for yourself and your loved ones and try not to let the bullies of social media, pop-culture, or your aspirational clothing dictate what is enough.

Beth’s Picture Show
Books · Minimalism · Reviews & Reflections

Beth’s Picture Show

Beth DeFries1 Comment

One unexpected aspect of minimalism is maximalism in mental clarity. Whether you want it or not, you have more capacity for self-reflection, for internal debate, creative thought, and circumstantial realization- for confrontation, and coming to terms with things you’ve been ignoring, procrastinating, or denying. Minimalism clears both your physical space and surroundings as well as your mental space. It presents possibilities and dilemmas and gives you a power so valuable and defining – that of choice, and of diving into the unknown.

When I was little, my dad used to read to my sister and me nightly. I remember one book called Katie’s Picture Show by, James Mayhew. My sister, having the same name as the protagonist, is the owner of this childhood treasure now. Katie (the character), would visit the art museum with her grandmother and would dive into famed artworks during unsupervised moments and find herself part of the paintings that she visited, experiencing the depicted moments first hand and, sometimes, finding it hard to get back to reality. As a child who escaped into my own imagination frequently, I used to identify with the character, though over the years, I discovered that I lost that ravenous drive to wander uncharted territory.

Imagination is a wonderful and daring noun, a muscle that weakens if you do not exercise it, a gem so precious and in need of polishing that its shine dulls with lack of display to the point of fading into the background of miscellany present in the section of your mind containing repressed memories and rusty tactical skills. It gets pushed deeper into the shadowy corners of your mental attic each time you opt to expend your energy on something else you deem more important.

I have learned that I am a person who finds it difficult to focus on too many things at once. I put all that I am and all that I have into nourishing what I would miss most if it were gone.

As a child, I threw myself into art, writing, and friendships- as a late teenager to now, I have devoted myself completely to an enduring love, family, and companionship. I ask myself often why I do not devote much time to exercise the skills that were once my greatest strengths, the hobbies that were my raison d’être as a child, and I am frequently met with frustration and disappointment in myself for not giving them the energy and time they should deserve.

I pull the chain to the overhead lightbulb over the box with my imagination every once in a big red moon, searching in half-hearted attempts to find that missing part of me. It usually happens in times when I notice that other friends or acquaintances are more talented, creative, driven, and successful in hobbies that I used to be good at. I realize now that that is the wrong fuel for the search.

You need to seek your imagination for its own sake and nothing else. Stop giving a flying fork how good someone else is at “your” hobbies. They deserve to be good at their hobbies and their success should be a separate entity from you and your life. If they are your friends or family, you can even go ahead and be proud of them. Comparison can be mentally unhealthy; I know it has been for me.

Minimalism has taught me to recognize the things that are most important to me in my personal now, the things that I get joy out of as well as those things that I feel are lacking. It has taught me to realize the once defining aspects of myself that I unintentionally minimized somewhere along the way but also that I have the potential to recognize when I need to nurture those skills again even if I need to pick up some extra elbow grease at Shop-Rite in order to succeed at them (by my own personal standards and no one else’s).