behavioral
below are my projects that go beyond the scope of .png or paper: these projects affect me and my lifestyle, thereby my behavior, directly. essentially, they affect the grand, overarching structures that govern my life, and maybe my designs can give you a chance to examine your behaviors in a positive way, too!
left hand, wrong hand
wherein i re-train my hands to challenge me mentally and to help me better “fit in” to how artistic instruction is offered: right-handed
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growing up raised by my father, a secretly-practicing catholic, meant i knew that there was a religious difference between left-handed and right-handed people, and deeply. why did i know the difference? because the difference meant heaven and hell, literally.
the right, the righteous, and the right-handed were on the side of heaven, and left-handedness, or being sinister, was on the side of hell.
what does being sinister mean, exactly? well, first off, catholics thought i was devious. no joke--adults told me i was going to hell for being left-handed. but sinister really means to be a creature that commits sin, to be full of sin.
and what does sin mean? think back on your Spanish language lessons. sin means 'without' -- and, in this case, without the glory, mercy, or love of god. that's truly what it means to sin, and to be full of sin means to be without god's glory or god's love.
imagine being told that as a seven year old just trying to figure out how to write with a pen. i didn't have time for other people's god hang-ups, i was busy trying to figure out why fridge and refrigerator were the same object but not the same word.
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while being left-handed has afforded me a unique window into the design thinking of right-handed people, i must say bluntly: i never asked to be left handed, especially in this very rigid, mean, and unforgivingly one-sided world. the hassle i have experienced at the hands of other humans (pun intended) has been nearly non-existent as an adult, and it was sporadic as a kid, but it was deeply pointed, and shattered my psyche and identity at a young age, meaning i’ve been picking up those shattered pieces for a while now.
but, a lament can offer as much hope as sadness, so i will say that, despite not necessarily wanting to stick around on this earthly plane, i have stuck around to try to be a tiny little sinister thorn in the side of a cookie-cutter “right means right” world where everyone is still expected to be designed the same as every other human
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in December 2019, i applied to be considered for UW-Madison's Rhet/Comp PhD program; i finally wanted to become Doctor Pardo. in January 2020, the UW rejected my application, so, in fall 2020, i enrolled in the Visual Communications program at Madison Area Technical College.
during fall 2020's semester, i enrolled in my first and only analog drawing class for the ViComm program: Fundamentals of Drawing. before the first day of class, as i was recovering from the shock of the UW's rejection, and as my life and identity slowly fell apart during the coronavirus pandemic, a nagging question rooted in my mind: how would i learn how to draw, officially -- with my right hand or with my left hand?
as a natural-born lefty, i originally thought it would be best to train my left hand to also draw, but drawing with my left hand feels fundamentally incorrect, as if i am not meant to artistically hold the pencil with my left hand. i know i'm meant to write words with my left hand, but not draw.
so i chose to go into this class as a right-handed student, and that moment has propelled me to explore my right-handedness and my ambidexterity, thereby changing my very way of thinking and interacting with reality. never before had i truly considered things from a right-handed perspective, using the right side of my body, specifically my hand and eye, to lead the way for the rest of me.
vegetarianism: living without meat
why vegetarianism?
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while i was diagnosed with thrombocytopenia at the ripe ol' age of thirty, my hematologist believed that i first developed this autoimmune disease when i was eleven or twelve. i have struggled with bodily inflammation, exhaustion, and pain my whole life, and vegetarianism offered me an alternative path to eating so much food that was difficult to digest or that would inflame me, namely, processed meats.
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meat has always been the most expensive part of any modern american's diet. by eliminating meat from my diet, my partner and i save countless hundreds of dollars on our grocery trips. only buying fresh and frozen vegetables, canned and dried goods, and some meat substitutes, my fiance and i rarely break three-digit grocery bills every week.
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i feel extreme and terrible remorse for eating meat. some time in my mid- to late-twenties, i began to feel too guilty to eat meat—i would think about all of the cows and pigs and sheep and other animals, living terrified, cramped lives, being sent to die for no reason other than for the consumptive pleasure of some species that happened to bully those animals into submission. i couldn't shake it for so long that i finally allowed that moral horror to dictate my diet.
easy vegetarian recipes
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easy vegetarian recipes *
