A horrible day. I started by rearranging my accounts in preparation for the end-of-tax-year, with separate entries for personal and business income/outcome. Most of my 'business' income is personal anyway, but this separation will help in future, should I form a media company one day. Then I traced over the Sappho underdrawing to its dark green background.
After lunch I was informed that my RedBubble account, which had listed all of my digital artwork from 2002-2003, and all of my album art and merchandise, was 'suspended' (deleted, that is) without warning and for no discernible reason. Perhaps this art content was not seen as compatible with the tee-shirt designs I founded the shop with, it would indeed be better if my shop was branded Mark Sheeky Artworks, but it's not possible to change a username or rebrand anything on RedBubble, and nigh on impossible (as it is with any of these slave-driven digital elites) to contact anyone. Our lives are increasingly digital, and dominated by giant anonymous companies who own our creations, own our data, our life's industry, and at whim can destroy it. A few years of dormancy and - boom! We're dead. If you're not making enough money or gaining enough popularity to satisfy these digital aristocrats, it's the guillotine for you! So our souls hang by a Damoclesian thread, but worse than mere death awaits! No less than the eradication of all of our information, our selves, memories of ourselves, and everything we've done in our lives: gone, for the crime of not being rich or popular.
Perhaps the real reason for my suspension is my lack of sales (I hereby apologise for my poverty and obscurity). I've not sold a digital art print or album print, just a handful of tee-shirts or other items not connected to the digital art. I fell into depression then anger at the stupid site and became filled with hatred for the world generally. Then, at tea, my beloved china plate, from which I eat every meal, was cracked down the middle by my idiotic mother who put it empty in the microwave 'to warm it' - I despise warm plates and have mentioned this time and again, but was even more broken by the breakage of my 30-year old friend. It is, annoyingly, not cleaved in two but cracked down the centre and ready to fall in two. I'll keep using it, making every mealtime a study in terror, reminiscent of my childhood studies in terror of being in the proximity of my insane father.
My focus must be painting, and, on a positive note, I think I am doing new things. It feels like a rebirth of sorts, after a few years of little progress in visual art - my focus has been on music. For every painting I have, I now want to add more. I'm now thinking of art in the way I think of my music; creating with the end in mind rather than for its own sake. The initial joyous stab of inspiration used to be my incentive. Now I will craft and plan first, sketch options, consider. Hopefully I can paint tomorrow. Peter's lesson on Wednesday will interrupt the day, but I am aware that his lessons won't last forever.
