#misfit

Oracle's greatest threat to anonymity is Misfit.

Charlotte, er, Charlie Gage-Radcliffe is a young heroine, the merry & mischievous Misfit; born from magical Homo Magi heritage, she's gifted superhuman strength & the metahuman power to teleport, at will (+ regeneration w/ each "bounce"); at first, her mother discouraged the use of her powers, but after losing her family in a fire, Charlie dedicated herself to fighting crime, like her idol Batgirl (even assuming the name for a time); her hero career was relatively brief & conflicted, but at her best, she's aided mentor Oracle & the Birds of Prey + the Teen Titans!

Me..... The world.

I don't often get too personal with what I post on social media, for the obvious reason that it's social media.

But at the moment, Tumblr is pulling me in like it's a confessional with the door wide open spewing confetti and stuffed animals..... and maybe it's because I know that all you on here are just as weird as me and maybe might actually GET what I'm going through.

Short story: I've been chronically ill for over a decade, constantly fighting shifting symptoms that I've mostly had to deal with/advocate for by myself. The past few months have been particularly stressful as I lost an estranged parent while the remaining was keen on trying to use me, then got laid off from the steady remote work that I'd been doing for 19 years "for the health of the company" - they also laid off 30 some others. I had a full on nervous system crash after that. Not a nervous breakdown, a CRASH, like my nervous system literally couldn't take any more shit and I lost functionality.

So here I am, housebound, struggling with a million symptoms, still looking for work and getting ghosted, ignored, rejected through all the legitimate avenues and getting circled by scammers as if I was a bucket of chum, and all the while trying to maintain my sanity by putting art on PaperNoel Adventures every week, starting an Etsy shop and Gumroad account, resurrecting my pinterest, facebook and my main instagram, unearthing old artwork to give it new life and hopefully just get myself in front of the eyes of someone who might actually be my audience and be willing to hire me for...literally whatever. I'm trying to stay visible online so I can feel like I'm still part of the world.

And...I look at my art, all of it, and feel like I don't fit neatly into ANY category. Sure, I can do graphic design, package design, costume/fashion design, painting, drawing in at least 7 or 8 different styles that I'm aware of, block printing, papermaking, jewelry making, writing, content creation, sewing, papercraft, pattern making, video editing/creation, storytelling, sonnet writing, paper doll making, humor, song parodies, portraiture, character design, world building, etc etc etc.

But it seems like the world wants, or advertises that it wants, clean design, trendy graphics and cohesive style.

Meanwhile I'm dressed like Alice in Fucking Wonderland with a flying typewriter that happens to sport a doll head spewing hieroglyphics next to me while shouting like a Victorian carnival barker about why you need Nosferatu drink coasters and punctuating each sentence with "Noel Fielding".

I mean seriously. Look at this mess. This is all my art. This is all from the same person.

This is just what I do. And I feel like what I do is not what the world wants.

I don't have "a style", I have like ten and can cross media as easily as walking into the next room. It feels like my versatility is a liability. And it feels like I have to try and herd my work into a lane or make it more easily digestible because I guess agencies and those who do the hiring have only a few precious minutes to glance over work and mine is not immediately easy to slap on a label or put in a damn box.

I have already, on the now two portfolio sites I'm using, corralled my art into projects or groups, but believe me, it's still not easy to put the work into neat little categories because so much of it always crosses boundaries.

This is not a case of me needing to "hone" a style, or a situation where I have the extra energy to make art specifically for a portfolio to appease someone I don't know for expectations I can't even guess at. I need for someone to see ME, and get ME.

I'm creating in the midst of the worst struggle of my life and the fact that I can even do that on a given day surprises even me.

I have a TON of art that's on my computer and in a plastic bin under a table and several mixed media pads and folders bursting with it and that is what I have to pull from. I have no idea what to do with it all, how to get seen, who my audience is, except for you who might be reading this.

Do ANY of you feel like you just are not the right shape for this ridiculous world no matter what you do? Artistically or otherwise?

Commission made for EpsilonTLOSdark4

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