Thank You For Talking About It - Tumblr Posts

"But the art is gross!"

Come'ere and let me tell you a story.

When I was in my senior year, a painting of mine got into an art show at a university museum. I was wild crazy excited and wrote out my artists statement in one night about the piece. I painted it based off a photo I took of a local reservoir during a particularly bad time and my statement spoke about being queer in my city and finding peace at places like the reservoir. I painted it with pallet knives and acrylics.

I was forced to remove any mention of my queerness from my statement due to the "sexual nature" of it by people at my school. There was nothing sexual about it.

Obviously, I did it, with some pressure from others. but when I drove up to see it there, I could not feel proud of it there. Compliments felt hollow. I was told they placed it at the front because they loved it. But it was censored in a way that made it lesser to me. Often I wish I would have refused.

Censorship doesn't stop at "icky" things. It crawls and devours like ivy until everything is dead. Nothing remains.