When I was a kid I used to love to draw. A high school art teacher threw some shade my way to discourage me from setting my sights on continuing toward a life in the visual or graphic arts. For many decades after that B.S. high school experience, I put the idea of making art out of my head (save for once when I was at MacDowell Artist's Colony, finishing my second collection of stories; I spent some time writing off the page (eg, thinking) and making these little tiny books out of leaves to gift to my co-resident artists for fun). But I never picked up a pen to doodle or draw again.
I thought the art teacher was right: I thought what he said was true: "You only convinced yourself that your work is good." It stung me, even though I didn't really care about being good; drawing and making comics gave me joy since I was super young. I loved it. I could get lost for hours and hours in it.
Seriously, how many things can I say that about? Unbridled joy. That's the stuff of life, my friends.
Above please find what you can categorize as a slice-of-life comic strip.
It is a-okay with me if you think I'm not that good at it; probably you are right. Unlike most of what I do, I'm not doing it to be good but instead to express my experience with long COVID so I can stop yammering on and on about it all the time at (paid) work and with friends and family.
You may comment if you please on anything at all. I welcome your thoughts: critical or non-critical, about long COVID or about making art, or about art teachers gone awry. Please feel free. Let's talk about stuff. I'm lonely working from my bed all the time.
p.s. Mr. Thompson, if you are out there, sir: you were very wrong about art, even if you might have been right about me.
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