My art is my visibility. That's probably why my colors are bold and loud and striking. Why my visuals tend to be complex than simple.
All my life I have always felt that I am only half-seen or not at all. When I am visible there is always a filter over me of labels and categories and assumptions. Most of the time I felt seen only from one dimension.
When I was in high school I longed to be part of the group who always got to perform dances and dramas during school events. They were often the pretty ones, the ones who were so confident and comfortable with their bodies. I, on the other hand, was the teacher's pet who always finished each school year with a gold medal as First Honor Student but generally did not have a lot of friends and whose crushes liked the girls in the dance and drama groups.
But I am an introvert leaning towards the extreme end of the scale, who prefers being alone, not talking much, and avoiding as many social obligations as I can get away with.
In college I went to a university where the children of the top 3% of the country goes. I got in by scholarship. That was another kind of invisibility. Although I still remember that in one of my Political Science essays, my teacher wrote a comment: You're so quiet in class but your essays certainly make a lot of noise!
I worked in the advertising industry, the last place I wanted to be but the only place that allowed me to wear whatever I wanted instead of a corporate business suit. I was out of place in so many ways. I made some friends but never really grew friendships that lasted deep and long like everyone else. I couldn't afford to go to all the trips or all the parties or the shopping splurges. I didn't care about the same things, nor believed in the same god.
There was one brief period in the 1990s though, when alternative was the thing, and for that moment I was visible because the trend coincided with who and what I was. People remembered me mostly from that time. And then the new millennia came in.
As I grew older it was like being back at school, with my smart brain carrying me along, doing well at work, but not really making connections. I didn't get invited much to get-togethers when team members went their separate career paths. I just sort of faded away. I have almost 300 friends on my Extro-FB and most of them were from work but the connections are light to moderate. I have unique links to a handful few, but none soul-deep (except my best friend from college but then she's a bit of an oddball in her own right which was why we got along).
When I fell off the social grid when I went freelance for a decade I wasn't missed much. I realized I didn't miss many either.
Then I went back into the ad agency grind and I am somehow a little more visible now. But strategy work is thinking work and much of my output is really absorbed into the creative work. Also, there's little progress on attitudes about strategy now compared to the 1990s. Not everyone gets it or finds it relevant. What's good about now is that the teams at least believe in it and support it, unlike before.
Although looking into what remains of my future there really isn't much to show. Except for my art.
Because the rest of my life is not much either. Because late to-be-diagnosed ADHD. Because years of anxiety and depression.
But art-making has saved me countless times. It's all I have to be seen and to be remembered. It's the only way I can speak without reservations.
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