SHADES OF SANITY

“I find it almost ironic. We are used to seeing only when we close our eyes. And be blinded when not”.
—Kira Leblanc, 2007

Thursday. 01:00.

Fourth entry:

I find the dark, gruesome spans of time shared past dawn as a safe space, magical, where the human boundaries of the realm of dreams and imagination expand to their limits. I’m fascinated by the effect that a cold, lonely place, filled with nothing but a glimpse of weak yellow light coming from my father’s old lamp and a deafening silence that expands all over the world has on the human mind. My mind.

The wonders of all our senses. The pathway to the world's duality. The breaths that are filled with the smoke of the cigar, which helps me enjoy the smell of coffee in the morning. The roughness of my desk, that helps me conceive the softness of my bed. The powerful daylight, or the weak lamp, doomed to create darkness, in the deformed and abstract shape of powerful shadows. Oh, my shadows, the dearest in my mind. Why did you adopt my light into your race? Forced me to follow the natural rule, forced me to my humanity, to my duality. Dual. My mind.

And as light casts shadows, the paintings of my mother, hanging in the living room, are nothing but the bright object that hides the horrific creations my hand and paint have brought upon what once were nothing but white canvases: the tools of imagination, magic, and dreams. Just as the gruesome night. Yet, night is the realm of imagination, but not of creation. It’s the realm of shadows, cast small or large, deformed, with no colors, leaving the mind in check. Such a realm took over my canvases. Eerie and distorted figures engulfed in darkness have taken over what I once believed to be art and haunt me like the shadows. Shadows. My mind.

The old clock, my friend, my enemy, chaining opportunity and experience, is ticking. It's almost 2 am. I should stop writing notes down on Phillips Journal and go to sleep in my beautiful realm. Tomorrow, I expose my monstrosities to the counsel, and my beloved finally returns home after a while. Curse Philip today. By now, he should know, I am not crazy. I just like to see with my mind. My mind.








Lurking in the shadows, my mind.
Monday. 16:00

First entry:

Afternoons in Chicago during the long, cold, white winter are a delight to my skin. The snowy climate stroking my long dark hair, painting it of an entirely opposite color; the winds of the Boreas, Zephyrus, Notus, and Eurus making the old black coat move; and the vintage black boots feeling the heavy steps it takes to cross the Michigan Avenue and get to the Art Institute. The place my teachers and companions have worked so hard to make “my home and shelter”. A disgusting place full of myths disguised as truths, regulations, a cult towards beauty and a form of succeeding in the form of perfection and popularity. The place where an artist goes to flourish but the art goes to die. A wicked place where the sects of so-called art knowers go to criticize the work of hundreds in a pantomime where the best they can describe of a simple painting about the human mind is “profound and intellectual”.

But I’m still bound to it. Bound to the white majestic museum and the paintings inside. Bound to the canvases and the smell of oil, and the colors and the noise. Bound to the creative people surrounding me that have become fond of me as much as I have become fond of them. Bound to the home of my beloved Milly, who’s dream resides in this white illusion. I’m bound to the Institute, but not to the dream. I am not bound to the objective of seeing my signature on a painting of the halls, or to see the world with the grip of the critical sight that sees lines and the shapes to guide the eye to message and perfection. I am not bound to the art of art, I am not bound to the idea of an artist. I pursue no passion, and I believe in no talent nor technique, even if my teachers can ironically believe I am the future of the institute in my “innate ability to reach the highest standards”.

No, I don’t like much of the ideas they try to sell. But I do like the concept of it: The possibility to show to the masses the creations of the human mind with the swing of some tools and the use of some colors. To create a place, person, or thing and give it an appearance to bring it closer to reality. To play with the illusionism in your public: The lights and the profundity making a precise effect, transforming the mind, filling the knowledge with unchecked ideas that transform into the human philosophies, driving our lives. That is a concept I pursue. Still, that’s why I also study philosophy since February of this year of the Lord, in a search for meaning in all this knowledge.

Today, I am alone in the halls, for my beloved has left a while ago. And I paint. I paint for the critics, for the counsel, I paint for the class, I paint for the people. That’s what I say. But the truth is, I paint for none, not even for myself. I paint as a surrendering beacon to the overwhelming and fascinating idea my life has taught me. The duality of it all, the interplay of opposite things of nature, dooming things to existence and insignificance. It’s almost fundamental to understand the concept of duality to even claim to know little about the human being. It rules it all: the good and the evil, the sane and the mad, the living and dead, the light and the dark, and it’s all dependent on each other. Light is meaningless without darkness, so it creates shadows to complete the dual circle. And the way such shadows behave… I can’t help but find it all extremely fascinating. I sincerely believe that out there, in the dark realm of the shadows, lies the answer to explaining the human condition. And I try to reflect that idea in my art. People love the paintings, but they don’t get the message. All they see is the son of the infamous Kira Leblanc, flourishing in talent like his mother before him. I despise that idea as much as I despise myself, and my parents, and the whole institute. For I’m once again doomed to follow the duality rules, and I find no escape from that. Just like a shadow is a projection of a shape without light, I am nothing but the projection of my mother without passion. And I’ll go back to dust one day, being a shadow like I lived.