Tada! An art piece of @xavtheidiot 's character, Zane! Hope you like it! I did the cheeks in my own kind of style, as well as the hair. Hope you don't mind. Kept her in the original outfit, too. The reason it took so long is because I am both plagued with school and an ongoing existential crisis.
Often times my work is more about a conversation with my anxieties. I have a deep, conflicting relationship with concepts of existentialism. The following works reflect abstract ideas that I simply don’t have words for.
A whimsical yet haunting reflection on the passage of time, From Time to Time imagines a fragile machine built to bend reality itself. The “Tempus Machina” stands as both invention and relic — humming with promise but tethered by a frayed cord and a warning: Watch Your Step. The cracked wall, warped floorboards, and distorted clock hint that tampering with time comes at a cost. Blending humor, nostalgia, and existential tension, Patmore’s work transforms a steampunk curiosity into a metaphor for our human impulse to repair, rewind, and relive what’s already slipping away.
A far-too-common archetype that i have observed frequently in people as they converse with another is one in which an individual uses two layers of defense to protect an otherwise unexamined confusion or emptiness. This relates to a defense of the ego and does not apply to all situations involving anything discussed.
First posturing:
-A mask (or wall) of mockery is sustained in which the defensive individual behaves flippantly as if in jest. This positioning is a way to be aloof from the situation, using incredulity and belittlement to keep a person or their ideas away from the defensive individual.
Second posturing:
-A mask (or wall) of rage is revealed after a certain level of perceived threat is achieved internally. This positioning is usually the one the defensive individual maintains when they have given up the argument or the introspection. Not risking an ontological or existential crisis, the defensive individual lashes out with anger, often accusatorily in manner, potentially belittling others further or just plain rushing away in a huff. This is usually the end of the engagement.
Third posturing:
-The masks (or walls) both come off, leaving the defensive individual to examine the thoughts or behaviors involved in the situation more critically. The defensive individual may find themselves feeling deeply uncomfortable, sad, uneasy, lost, or confused. This position leads to introspection and to a genuine openness, which is not something that the defensive individual had been prepared for. They may find that they were incorrect, only partially correct, or that the perceived rightness of their idea/behavior now has an expanded context, all of which may seem frightening. Individuals may become mentally paralyzed at this point. It takes a strength and an honesty to reflect in this position, which is not something that everyone expressing this archetype will be capable of doing.
(Based on my professional insights as: a cashier, as a member of various technical support staffs, as an occasional minister, and as a peer counselor. Also based on my casual and repeated interactions with both strangers and with more intimately known persons over the course of my lifetime. Observations are my own.)
These are 5 out of 12 images I did while processing the necessity of healing from life lessons. Heartbreak is prevalent throughout all the levels of tragedies in our lives. At times, the mourning period feels forced-- I never really want my wounds to heal because I feel they're the last of the love I carried for that "thing". The process feels like gold pouring into my gapping heart and I can only scream as it sears through my veins. It hurts to heal. It hurts that it has to happen.
Against the weight of a storm-dark sky, tender stems lean forward—some bending, some breaking, some still reaching.
They hold their fire at the tips, waiting to bloom, waiting to burn, waiting to belong to light.
Perhaps this is all of us:
stretching through shadows,
searching for the thin, golden line that divides earth from eternity.
