18 - 24

I had one of those moments a couple weeks ago where I was lying in bed just kinda zoning out and staring at the creepy monkey mask on the wall when suddenly a thought hit so hard it stuck. 

I was going to do a little self portrait of how I pictured myself for every year of my life. I started at 24 and began to work backwards thinking I would get about three done before getting bored. I ended up getting all the way down to 7 years old in one sitting because I was having that much fun. 

I posted little sets of four on instagram as I finished them, but realized I put enough effort into these damn things and they amuse me enough I want to properly blog about them. They are all atc sized and done with a 5H pencil and watercolor. They are also almost all entirely from memory (I made two special exceptions so far that I will note as we get to) but I would have to say they are pretty spot on, I would know, I was there.

Without further ado, here's the first batch of portraits- age 18 to 24.

eighteen-

I took a lot of self portraits at eighteen because I was huge on photography, especially portrait photography. Wide eyes and parted lips was kinda my "signature" self portrait look I tried to capture here.

Although not pictured enough to be obvious, I know the t-shirt I'm wearing is a concert shirt from Rammstein's Liebe ist für alle da tour because I wore that shirt as often as it was clean.

At eighteen my life plan was to become an accountant and spend the evenings sitting in the windowsill of my studio apartment, chain smoking and drinking gin. I was going to still pursue art and writing on the side, but felt planning on being an accountant with a drinking problem was somehow more sensible than applying to FIDM, San Francisco like I really kinda wanted to.

nineteen-

Two quarters into college I realized how deeply apathetic I was about business calculus. Not bad at, mind you, I was always great at math, just utterly apathetic to. Teamed with the fact everyone in the world was going for an accounting/business admin degree I switched to a general associates of arts & sciences.

To celebrate that I was not going to be an accountant, I cut and bleached my hair and got a huge tattoo of an anglerfish/dragon hybrid on my calf.

I'm smoking a candy cigarette here and I cannot exaggerate how many of these I went through. I almost took up actual smoking because I thought it might be a laugh but asked not-yet-Mr. Me what he thought and he said if it was all the same to me he'd rather I didn't. We had just started dating and wore matching gnome necklaces.



twenty-

This is one of the portraits based off a photo. On our wedding night we stayed at a bed and breakfast, the owners had a thing where they liked to take photos of all their guests when they arrived and give them copies at breakfast.

The photo they took of us cracks us both up to this day because while it is clearly us, somehow we both look about fifty thousand times better in the photo than we have ever looked in real life. Like it's a photograph of a couple of movie stars we are merely stunt doubles to.

From the photo you would never guess that my sister super glued our hands together while she was helping me get ready or that I broke the knife while slicing the cake or that we didn't have the foresight to ask someone to prepare a toast for us so we made the guests play "nose goes".

twenty-one-

Twenty-one was a pretty rough year. I don't remember a lot from it since I was struggling with depression most of it.

This was the year we got the late Gerald(ine) Pancake. She's passed out under my pony-tail here, which she very often was at the time. She would crawl up there when it was just about time for her to go to bed and nibble on my hair before passing out.

I'm wearing the same shirt I was at eighteen because I am the worst at ever buying new shirts.

But the important thing about twenty-one year old me was that I loved that weird little lizard very much.

twenty-two

The year in which I pierced my eyebrow and got a big ass octopus on my shoulder.

Pancake and I were pretty damn inseparable her entire life, so of course she's in my hair again here. She used to come to the pet store (on a leash, chilling on my boob) and without fail, every time, someone would come up and tell me that she blended in perfectly with my hair.

Twenty-two was a better year than twenty-one. It's the year I started writing daily again and also the year I finally got some help for my depression.

It's also the year I would hang my head upside down to comb my hair for extra volume. If you think this is an exaggeration I definitely do have photographic proof of my hair getting this big at times. I can only speculate that I was using my 80's hair to shield my fragile psyche.

twenty-three

At twenty-three, we had to put Pancake down.

The fact is, Pancake's toes were falling off when we first got her. And I know adopting a sickly animal is idiotic, but she picked me. The second I walked by the reptile tanks she ran up to the glass and pounded her fist against it like she was yelling "Yumin! Ay need yu! We's mayd for 'chother!"

We needed each other. On the worst days of twenty-one and twenty-two that weird little lizard was my reason to keep going. Someone had to feed and water the lizard. I know how ridiculous that sounds, but when you're struggling with depression you cling to what you can.

I took it pretty hard and when I take things hard I cut my hair. On a lighter note, it sure was nice to not have to schedule washing my hair ahead of time anymore...

twenty-four

Well, this is me now.

I look like this, no snarky commentary because I still think it's a good enough idea to look like this that I choose to every morning.

The shirt I was wearing at eighteen and twenty-one is cut up and on an embroidery hoop as I type. It's so well loved I'm outlining the design so I can put it in a cute hoop to hang on the wall. Otherwise, I would still be wearing it. This shirt has triumphed as my favorite and happened to be what I was wearing when I started this.

I don't know what to say about this year yet except it's the year I am really truly getting back into art and (knock on wood) I'm feeling more like the person I want to be than I have ever felt before. So that's pretty cool.


Next time (erm, eventually) we will leap further back in time to judge my bad hair styles.