MAISIE (may-zee) CORL (coral), 21. I have a hard time waking up.

I draw in my diary every day, like between two and ten drawings. Sometimes it’s just using up excess energy, the satisfaction of making a cute face on the paper to stare back at you. But usually I’m trying to exorcise some image that’s been sticking to me. It occurs to me on the train in the morning, some scene which can describe a feeling I want to show somebody, and then I turn it around in my head until I can get to the studio and commit it to paper. I like to draw the image on my canvas with a Sharpie really fast, and then fill it out with oil paint. The faster I draw it, the more I like it.  And then I use a lot of layers of oil paint. I never really think about color when I plan the image, only lines. So I make a lot of choices I end up disagreeing with, and I go back and cover it up. I think I’ve been doing it this way for too long, because it’s built in now. If I do it right the first time, the painting looks empty to me.

I’m loyal to oil paint. We’re in a codependent relationship. It’s very important to me that all my paintings are oil, because people who don’t see them in person are always asking me if they’re digital. So it’s kind of a legitimacy issue for me. Because the subjects of my paintings are so indulgent and immature, I feel like the heaviness of oil paint saves them, or at least complicates them.

I don’t think I’m one of those people who thinks everything I do is part of my work, they’re semi-separated. I go to school and I go to my day jobs and I clean my room to maintain a life where I can work on paintings.

I try not to put the real girls I know into the painting too often, but they all appear in pieces, frankensteined together. It’s hard sometimes. I revise the girls a lot so they don’t look too much like Alyvia, or Viktoria, or Sharon. I think in my paintings I try not to accuse anyone. The interactions between the girls are often violent or romantic or cruel in ways which bleed and overflow out of the edges of reality, doing things you or I wouldn’t want to be caught doing. Maybe it’s really not true, but I’m showing you how it feels. It’s like lying in your diary, creating a more satisfying melodrama to look back on. Once you bring other people into it, there’s a question of the truth, the painting becomes a document. I don’t want to worry about historical accuracy, or how close together we really stood. The more of the scene is made up, the more accurate I can be to my own fantasies. Does that make sense?

Cell membranes.

I try to stay very busy. The time will pass either way. And I can’t wait for spring.

My friend just gave me a pair of slippers she bought on Buyee from Vivienne Westwood, and they’re these green suede highland dance shoes with attached wool socks sticking out of them. It’s like a trompe l’oeil. I did Scottish highland dancing for 10 years, and I still try to practice sometimes. I was really overwhelmed when she gave them to me, it was right after I came back to Chicago after 6 months in Scotland. True love expressed through material goods. My feet will never be cold again.

I’m going to make enough paintings that I have one for every situation. Like a folder of screenshots on your phone. So I have a complete and exhaustive list of How It Feels When ___.

Someday, I want to tell a complete story.

Cadbury creme.