I am taking this opportunity to use chapter two of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man as an excuse to perform a self roast on my middle school self. I will be using some of the events from chapter two as points of reference for some of my reflection. I deeply sympathize with Joyce over not including his first poem. Keep reading to find out why …..
The first half of chapter two Stephen is described as a middle school aged boy who is understandably super awkward. He has a strange fixation on The Count of Monte Cristo, sitting alone at parties looking at girls, and making cringey art. I'm not trying to rip into Stephen; everyone goes through a uncomfortable period in their life. I think it's valuable that Joyce chose to include details of an embarrassing phase of his life in his novel. It made me reflect on my own middle school years and I had a blast thinking about what a little weirdo I was.
I thought it could be fun to do not a pastiche of Joyce but a caricature of myself from middle school. There is something overly dramatic yet relatable about Stephen sitting in the corner of a party using his psychic powers to get a girl's attention. Stephen's style throughout the whole chapter reminded me of what a "fedora guy" is all about. For those of you who aren't sticking with the memes, fedora guys are typically preteens to teenagers who think of themselves as having higher intelligence than others and that is why they can't get a girlfriend. They also think that while other boys have "swag" they have "class." They're very strange, like Stephen! I am led to believe that Joyce did not just relay true facts to us in the text, but like any novelist, wrote novel-worthy content which is most likely exaggerated to some degree. I was quite active on deviantart and Tumblr at the time, so I made it in the form of a profile bio.
Check it out:
[I found a picture of me in middle school and I was going to post it here but I think it is better if I just had this in its place because my middle school self is... shockingly different I don't want to spook anyone. Message (don't comment) me to see]
This is me in the seventh grade! I like to color coordinate my outfits so I only wear one color on my entire body. Some days I look like a grape, and others I look like a fire engine XD
My interests include making ~fleece unicorn hatz~ and drawing my favorite characters from "hipster" media. Like a good artist, I draw every single day in my bedazzled sketchbook. I try to stylize my pieces as much as possible so that a viewer cannot distinguish between one part of the body from another. I don't really like to show people my sketches anymore, though, because one time my really talented artist friend saw my drawings and wouldn't stop laughing. Similarly, when I showed my dad some of my pieces, two technical anatomy textbooks were soon in my possession. I think my style is quite jarring but I like that it is edgy. That makes it meaningful.
The one piece I will show you [I WILL NOT SHOW YOU THIS DO NOT ASK] is my original character for my first comic :3c she doesn't have a name because she was born without one and she has no parents. (real reasoning) She is actually based off of me except I am a ninja owo as you can see I have rainbow wings, a hat with big floppy ears, and a scarf. These all help me to stay stealthy in the night.
I was going to include an image of myself and my artwork but I just felt an overwhelming feeling of pure embarrassment. I think that's okay, and I'm certain Joyce felt it too when he reflected on some of the first poems he wrote. No wonder he didn't include it in his novel. Interestingly, I have no shame in showing grade school and prior artwork, and no shame in showing artwork I'm doing now. For some reason these years have been poisoned for me in terms of artistic development. Maybe Joyce felt the same way. Could it be because middle school is the time that most children begin to think more critically, or that they begin puberty, or is it something else like the art is so close to being good that it is worse than being complete garbage?
I think it would be great to get some other artists perspectives on this. I know there are lots of you out there!! How were your middle school years in terms of the art you produced relative to now? Do you feel the same way abut your work? If you don't consider yourself an artist, are there other ways you relate to Stephen from early chapter two?
Lark. I do not want to pressure you into doing anything you are uncomfortable with, but I would love, love, love to see these pictures. In fact, to make you feel as if you are amongst like minds, I will tell my own, strikingly similar story. Ahem. Here goes:
ReplyDeleteI think that almost everyone goes through an emo phase sometime in their adolescence. Mine played out in that I dressed in all black, wrote what I thought of as "tragic but romantic" poetry, and often said things like "rawr", "xD", "roflmao" and the occasional "*~~*hElLo EvErYbOdY*~~*". I would share some of my poetry with you, but unfortunately a couple of years ago, I deleted my figment account, along with the "book" I posted titled "Epic Poetry." tl;dr it was not epic. In the least sense of the word. That does not mean that I did not spend countless hours writing and curating it though.
And while I am long past the days of writing song lyrics on my arms, I do think that having that period of artistic experimentation was helpful for me as a person, and as a writer. At least, it gives me a good laugh every time I think back on it.
UPDATE: I have found some of this old poetry which still lives on the interwebs. Shall we exchange old cringeworthy relics?
DeleteYes!!! I will bring my *original pieces* to school on monday. If you're feeling impatient, my deviantart account still exists and i use it occasionally to post some digital stuff. You can find a few pretty old things on there if you visit the OLD folder here: http://ninjabirthdaycake.deviantart.com/gallery/61194671/OLD
DeleteHmm well since Anna also decided to share her dark ages... Imma share mine. Middle school eh? Well I was complete ass at English in like every way possible (as in my logic was trash, my vocabulary was garbage, and my pronunciation of words was just... sigh). I had no balls back then, and I was a weak, whimpy, chubby, naive, and just a sad joke of a human. Most of all, my cooking was also trash.
ReplyDeleteThat isn't to say I'm not all those things now -- I am, but to a lesser extent. At least I have the common sense of not using raw potato as a garnish. Yea why tf did I do that I mean it doesn't even--
I also thought I was strong (physically and mentally), and that if I wanted to, I could accomplish whatever I want. I was dumb enough to get into a big BIG fight with my brother over me sitting in his room all the time. Well, guess how that ended... I also thought I could scale a mountain, but I couldn't even do a pull up. LOL
Like Anna though, looking back I laugh at myself for being such an annoying brat. I guess I also feel happy though -- my stupidity at that time was kind of cute.
I'm with both you and Stephen, I think anyone that is remotely creative had a period of time that they cringe at now. I personally have written terrible poetry, drawn cringey sketches, and written songs (dear lord help us all). Though we wish that period of time was erased from the history books, you can't deny that the rough stage of an emerging artist fundamentally shaped who you are today. I no longer write poetry (thank god), but I certainly love reading it so I think even the cringey parts are important, which Joyce seems to emphasize with Stephen.
ReplyDeleteDude this is a lawlfest you hit the nail on the head. I also wrote a bloggydog on this topic of cringe, but I think your personal anecdotes really exposed the feelings going on during chapter II. It's seriously my favorite part about Portrait, for how well it encapsulates the cringe factor of early adolescence. Excellent stuff Larko
ReplyDeleteAll artists have to start somewhere. Some measure of pretension is part of the territory. My general hunch is that those of us who go through a phase like this turn out to be a lot more interesting and individuated than those who are so careful not to stand out in any way that they govern every aspect of their lives based on what is trendy or popular at the time. As with puberty more generally, there's a necessary stage of awkwardness as the old self morphs into the new self.
ReplyDelete