[kennap]

I was drawing at the bar I work at and the man next to me asked me to draw myself. I started making a realistic self-portarit, he said "no no no thats not you" i said do u mean u want me to draw how i feel? so i drew me in a more abstract way making my eyes and head very large and curiuos, and energetic looking. He said "no no thats not you" so i made the next one more abstract, it was a girl with big heels.(im a dancer and 6'in painful heels are part of the uniform) He circled the shoes and said "these are the shoes, but this isn't you" I was getting frustruted, i told him "i can't draw me all on one page theres too much to me that's why i have tons of sketchbooks and paintings. There are too many types of me to even draw if i had all the paper in the world." he went on to tell me that I am more than how i percieve myself. I was like duh, thats what I'm trying to tell you. I asked him more questions "is everybody like that or just me? are you like that?" he said yes. Then he went on to tell me about andy warhol, it turns out the old man was one of andy's best freinds (i live in pittsburgh) he told me about how andy was like that, but andy was also even more. How there is a truth through art that is greater than even the artist. He said he could tell that my purpose wasnt money, but for truth. He said that made me greater than anyother person at the bar.
"but everyone is equal" i said
"no they aren't do you see anyone else draw as good as you?'"
"chloe draws"
" it's one thing to make pretty pictures its another to make true art"
"but im sure these other people have differnt skills, i mean chloe is a better dancer"
"she's doing it for money and attention"
"but shes still a good person these are all good people what difference does it make who's better when we are all good?"
"people think less of themselves than they really are, you are you. draw you"
it felt like electricty in my hands buzzing like when in deep mediation. I sketched out me from the papers point of veiw, like a mirrior. It was very fast and not deatailed. The mirrior-perspective i had used before to make 'pretty pictures' but it was differnent that time becuz of what it meant. it stood for: the perceptions we have (all the mental images) are less than are actual selves who have the perceptions. And when the actual self partakes in its own perceptions that is even greater. My art teacher had always told me that the art is greater than the artist, i thought that was just his personal veiw that could not work for me. I realized it meant more than that, that it was actaually a pardox. My actual self is greater than my art, but when i reflect my actual self into art it makes the art greater, and myself. i dont know which is greater, its the uncertainty principle. The alws governing our fundamental exsistence in some twisted way reveal themselves in our everyday exsistence.