Art is an intelligent mind without the discipline to go into the sciences. Every time I hear someone truly intelligent speak about the science behind our existence I am filled with an utter awe, not just the individual speaking, but for the sheer vastness and creativity of nature. The fact that you can not only comprehend that we are all connected, but to also know exactly in which ways we are physical connected, and understanding those connections. Being in the presence of these people, or merely seeing them through third party communication like the internet, television, or audio fills me with more inspiration than any artist has. I enjoy the works of other artists, but my inspiration for my non-furry work is all inspired by those who are considered some of the greatest minds of our times.

Unfortunately, I have fallen into a trap. My furry art has gotten me some notoriety among the fandom, and I relish in the attention. I am a beast who thrives on attention. That's why I went into acting, there is no greater high than to showcase myself either in my art or on stage and have people clapping for me, jealous of me, celebrating my work and ideas, and I thrive on it. I need it. I want more than anything to be a celebrated genius, it means nothing if people don't know or appreciate my work. Within the fandom so long as I continue to do furry work, especially if it has dicks in it, I will continually be praised, but this work has become less about my ideas, and more about what people want to see. People praise me for giving them what they want, not because I had a really good idea. Then the second I do in fact do something off of my own ideas they go completely ignored. This causes distress and depression, especially if I consider it to be a work of a much higher calibre than most of my furry work, especially when it concerns having much more god damned MEANING than my furry pieces. So I go back to giving the people what they want, so I can continue to feel validated in my work. This is a repeated process.

I need to escape this if I am ever to succeed in the art world, at least in the way that I want to. I need to find a way to put myself into a position to share my artwork with people other than furry fans and anime fans. People who appreciate art for art sake, not just people who want to see art representative of whatever gets their jollies off. But where is this place? I need to find a way to communicate with artists who hold themselves to a higher calibre than just getting asspats from furfags. I know some of these people exist within the fandom, but these people are also quite educated, and I am ashamed of my lack of high education in art, and too nervous to speak to these people. Which leads me to believe that I should get myself into an art school as soon as possible, if not for the instruction than for the connections I could stand to make. But is it worthwhile to sign up for the art institutes here? In nowhere Sacramento. Or should a push and find any way necessary to get down to the bay area and apply for schools there. I'm just so afraid of failure. My parents are cutting me off, which is expected, they have been paying my way longer than they should have, but my history with employment is quite scary to comprehend without a safety net. I go through jobs rather quickly, I've been fired for a few things which are symptoms of I problem I need to remember to get checked for, but not remembering to do things and getting distracted is another symptom of the same problem. I'm so worried that I'll end up homeless with no where to go if I leave Sacramento. Really that fear is what keeps me here. This fear keeps me up at night, crying. A part of me desperately wishes that I could just be, fuck it, the only way to know is to try, but the repercussions of failure are great.

Back to the point, I have wanted to go into the sciences longer than I have wanted to go into art. Only until I realized that I have a very hard time with Math, which pretty much killed my dreams of science did I latch onto another dream. Although I would be more than happy to live my life being an artist, the thought that I could show my mind off better if I was a scientist, and I still have wild fancies of up and changing my major, but fear that I will fail horribly on account of my mathematical handicap has prevented me from even trying.

I've been thinking about this quite a bit, and I think I logical conclusion would be to combine my love science and the great geniuses of our time and my artwork. I'm still refining exactly, how to do that. But I have a few ideas. Continue to push myself in artistic study and exploration, but keep my scientific interests happy by studying and reading on my own time, maybe take a class or two at JC. At least, that is the current forecast, plans my grow or change as time goes on. WOuldn;t it be amazing to illustrate for a scientific textbook?

Another thing I have wanted to address and make myself think about has already been mentioned above, but I want to call attention to it. I started drawing for my own reasons, my best friend was good at drawing, it was something fun to do, and it made me feel good. But somewhere along the line it became less about making the art what felt good, to the attention I get from producing art. The whole time I'm coloring an image, I'm usually thinking about how people are going to react once I post it. This is a problem as it contributes to the furry trap a discussed earlier. I have tried simply not posting, but I desperately need to know what people think about something, and again when I post it and no one says anything or looks at it I get the same level of distress, and the begin showing it to people deliberately and asking for feedback. I would like to not have the be so reliant on this, but on the other hand, how do I know if I am doing well?

How do you know when you are good enough to be put in a gallery. I would like to start drawing/illustrating things that would be suitable for sale to the general public and not just furries. But how do you go about getting your work into a gallery in the first place? I'd like to know that, then go gallery shopping downtown and see which ones would be most likely to take my art, but not until after I have a decent portfolio.