Revisiting My Artistic Side Part II: The Teddy Bear

So a few posts back, I did a post about a drawing that I’d done for my Art Appreciation class back in 2007. If you missed it you can read it here.

In that post, I’d said that I wanted to attempt to revisit where I was mentally when I drew that picture, which brings us to today’s post. I think it goes without saying that my mentality now is not the same as it was when I was eighteen, but since we do live in a world where people like to choose their favorite years of life and relive them no matter how old they become, I figure I’d just clear that up first.

Overall though, I think it’s fun to look back into a previous time in your life and see where your mind was at, so I’m doing this for myself as much as I’m doing it for the people who are interested in reading it. For this post we’ll start with the Teddy Bear.

The TEDDY BEAR:

Well like I’d said in the earlier descriptions, the teddy bear is symbolic of my youthfulness and almost childlike innocence. The youthfulness was me feeling like I was always the youngest person in any given group of people. For those who don’t know, I skipped 6th grade and was promoted straight into 7th. So from 7th grade on, I was always the youngest person in my grade by default and the trend continued in college where people’s age can vary dramatically.

As far as the innocence goes, I was raised in a fairly sheltered home. I don’t want to say it was extremely sheltered (I’ve seen much, much worse) but it was pretty bad at times. As a result, there were a lot of things that I learned in college that ended up being a series of first experiences (on fashion, interacting with certain types of people, etc etc) so I just felt like my eyes were constantly being reopened and adjusting to the world post high school. It was almost like living in a bubble, and one day just having that bubble popped.

The EYES: the eyes I made them look sad, or weary. At the time I felt like I was just going through a lot, I can’t remember if this picture was done before or after my jaw surgery, but I know for sure it was done after my wisdom tooth removal, both of which involved a lot of pain. Of course you also have the pressures of wanting to do well in school looming on your mind, and I had just changed my major because I had no idea what I wanted to do for a career anymore.

I wrote “loneliness” which is a little weird for me to read now, because I’ve always had a close group of friends and family, so my best guess was that I was lonely because I didn’t have a girlfriend at the time?(there’s more evidence later on that supports this theory) or I was going through a minor bout of depression,which was something I struggled with more frequently during that period of time.

HEART ON SLEEVE: This is why I think the “loneliness” was in reference to girl troubles. Generally speaking, I have a very complex and therefore frustrating relationship with the opposite sex. The most frustrating part about it is that it’s a very simple formula that has repeated itself ever since I was mature enough to look at girls as more than good friends (so let’s say like age five? haha)

It’s funny because, due to this formula, for several years I was convinced that I had no luck with women. It wasn’t until I was a little bit older and wiser that I realized that it was a stupid way to look at things but nevertheless, here’s my usual predicament.

The two main types of girls I attract (of course there’s always exceptions) is Girl A and Girl B.

Girl A: Besides obviously being physically attractive, there’s always just something about them, (I’m convinced that it’s more than ‘a great personality’)that just really draws me to them. It’s to the point where I’ve felt like no other girl would ever even matter if I could just make YOU mine… pretty heavy stuff right? Especially at age 18. The funny thing is, none of the few girls that have invoked those feelings have ever actually become my girlfriend. Maybe I’ll talk about it in depth some other time, but it just never seems to work out that way.

Girl B: Not to take anything away from the girls that fall into the category of “Girl B” but this category belongs to any girl that didn’t give me that “feeling” within a certain time after we met. That doesn’t mean that I liked them less, or that I treated them any differently from Girl A, I just didn’t get that feeling. At this point though, I hadn’t met any girls that I was attracted to, period, and I was wondering when that was going to change. Obviously, this further spurred the feeling of loneliness.

SEALED/STITCHED MOUTH: Again, this refers back to my whole jaw situation. In a nutshell, I had a bit of an under bite growing up and an under bite can only truly be fixed with reconstructive jaw surgery.(They move the lower jaw so the mouth is back in the usual ‘slight overbite’ position) So from when I was about 15, I started wearing braces so my teeth would be straight as possible, and we all know deep down that braces pretty much suck. From there it was having my wisdom teeth being pulled out, despite them not having grown in all the way at the time (quite a painful experience) and then finally having my jaw surgery, which is the most painful thing that I have ever experienced in life thus far, and yes I’m strictly talking about the recovery period. I actually think it was probably dark humor on my part, having spent so much time not being able to talk that I might as well have my mouth stitched close.

NECKLACE WITH A CROSS PENDANT: I come from a religious background. I was raised in a Christian home, went to a Christian school, and my dad was a youth pastor at our home church… So yes, I am a ‘pastor’s kid.’ And even though us pastor’s kids get unfairly stereotyped as being something like a ‘demon spawned from a God fearing household,’ most of us at least have our heart in the right place. I don’t claim to live like a saint, but I do believe that God exists and that I was created by Him. I believe that Jesus Christ is my Lord and Savior, I believe that everything that was written into the Bible is true,(not just because that’s what I was taught) and I believe that my faith allows me to have a personal relationship with my Creator. I don’t shove my beliefs into anyone’s face, but I do take them very seriously.

The JUST ME on my Shirt: The teddy bear is somewhat of a contrast when compared to the other two “Me” in the portrait. The other two both portray the least amount of intimate information about myself, they’re both purposefully withdrawn. The teddy bear is like every intimate detail all rolled into one.

BANDAGE ON TOE: Another example of the pain I was experiencing at the time. If I had to guess, this picture was drawn maybe a month after I’d gotten my right big toenail removed due to a toenail fungus and mannnn that hurt as well. I was just feeling a little miserable from the series of surgical procedures in such a short time period.

BARE FEET: This ties into the “Just Me” on the t-shirt. It’s really just symbolic of me being comfortable in my own skin, nothing too deep.

Well that’s about it for the Teddy Bear portrait, Next post will be the Teddy Bear with the mask.. Also, a small extra bit of info, this is the picture I used as inspiration for the teddy bear: