I only like making things for other people’s appreciation. Does this make me a bad artist? A prominent narrative in my mind is the artist, alone in an empty studio apartment, surrounded by misery and empty glass bottles, drawing from both in service of their higher calling, the art. For me, it’s difficult to create without the imagined audience existing as reality across from me, before I even start, even if they never materialize. I need external expectations, I need pressure. I need a wall to throw spaghetti at.

This trickles into my interests, too. I don’t know that eating does that much for me. Not alone, at least. An imagined embarrassment that I regularly fixate on is that the people I am close to will come across me in my most natural state, home alone, eating a random conglomeration of whole ingredients separately to form what could be a decent meal if even 20 minutes was spent preparing them. But I don’t do that for myself. I’ve had roommates be shocked to find out that I can cook (and pretty decently, actually), because the only time they see me do it seriously is when it's for other people.

Since this month has been chaotic1 and I am never home anymore, I thought I would take the rest of this post to reflect a thing I made with my hands recently, drawn out of my by other people. I am also interested in how different forms of art influence each other; honing my writing abilities has made me dress better, and working on crafts makes it easier for me to write. More on this in future essay, I hope.

Additionally, if you get to part of this post and it suddenly stops or trails off, this is because I am writing until 11:59pm and then posting so I can meet my goal of posting once a month this year. Something something embrace failure and being unprepared.2

spiderweb body chain & party planning

A good rule for crafting, especially when starting a new craft, is to buy more materials than you think, or know, you need. What you bought originally is never enough. This means that you will spend half of your day off on the red line to Friendship Heights3, which is conveniently located on the other end of the red line from where you live. Even better is the journey back home lugging a bright lime green bucket full of party and craft supplies against your belly, you left arm even weaker than it already is because you got your COVID booster that morning. Other than Saltburn-esque decorations, I needed more chain. I was making a body chain inspired by Venetia’s spiderweb dress from the film.

I am a perfectionist. Also surprising to a lot of those who know me. When I was younger, it was more obvious, manifesting in schoolwork and how I tried to come across to other people. Now, it is hidden by my inability to stay on top of all facets of adulthood. But it returns when I embark on a creative pursuit.

For hours, I sat on the floor pulling tiny metal hoops apart with a pair of jewelry pliers and my left thumb and forefinger. I should’ve bought another pair, but again: you can never successfully prepare for a new craft. It was quite literally numbing: at the end, the tips of my fingers were bloody and peeling and I did not have sensation in them. Even worse, I sat on my right leg funny while hunched over the pillow, pinching it numb until I could not feel (or control) from my knee down. Out of sheer determination, I wore heels that night, but I did not regain full sensation until a week later and handfuls of magnesium pills.

The fateful moment of this craft came when I finished it. I was on facetime with my home friends, and after much encouragement, decided to take it off the pillow and try it on to make sure it fit right. This was my mistake. It went on beautifully: even though I was wearing faded jeans and a sweaty long sleeve shirt, the chain glistened and sparkled on my body. It was a moment of triumph; somehow the splendor of the chain could be seen even via the notoriously low-quality facetime camera. The glee, the reenergizing, the oohs and ahs. I should have known I was flying too close to the sun. As I took the chain off and tried to flip it back onto the pillow, it immediately became one GIANT knot. Given that I finished it a mere 4 hours before the party was supposed to start, I was already running on a tight schedule, but then I spent the next hour trying, unsuccessfully, to detangle it. So then it was almost time for the party to start, almost nothing was set-up, and my pièce de résistance was a ball of junk.

I went upstairs to my room and cried for 10 minutes.

Then I came back down and starting getting everything else ready for the party. The show must go on. A good party is like being inside a movie for a moment. Not seeing a really good movie. Living it. It is a controlled environment, it is an orchestration of moving parts that produces a blurry whole. Want to slow down the pace? Turn the lights brighter in one area of the house and play more relaxed music. Want to get everyone ready to go out (read: leave)? Call for shot o’clock and then start delegating ubers while the energy is still high. A good party seems natural and spur of the moment but is built on layers of forethought and planning.

It was hard for me to still want to throw the party after the chain clumped. This is where the perfectionism comes in: if something I have deemed important goes wrong and seems unfixable, I am ready to throw in the towel. If it can’t be the way I see it in my head, it is pointless. I rather have nothing than have a semi-formed lump of steel and having to admit to embracing Plan B. Everyone would know that I failed, and wouldn’t that confirm what they were already thinking, that I could not pull off what I set out to, that I did not plan it well and therefore could not execute it in time? Wouldn’t it confirm that I am not a person to take seriously, whose words are worth their weight? I couldn’t bear the imagined pitying hush that would befall each greeting later that night.

A good friend arrives just in time without knowing it. L had asked to come early to help set up, and initially we’d said 7, but I pushed her arrival back to 8 in my distressed and tearful detangling. When she arrived, the first thing she asked was how she could help. I walked us over to the table where my jewelry lay and suddenly found it very hard to speak. I motioned at it and managed to explain that it had tangled. I stared at the table the entire time I said this, tears welling in my eyes, as I knew if I looked directly at L or tried to say anything else, I would break down into sobs.

The problem with being a closet perfectionist as an adult is it feels ridiculous. I know that the way I live does not make sense; I don’t care enough about the right things, am actively apathetic towards them, even, but when something hooks my brain, I cannot help it from eclipsing the sun. I kept thinking how silly it was that the first time L was seeing me cry was over an arts and crafts project. I felt so uncomfortable to be so vulnerable about something so trivial, and yet I couldn’t help it. I didn’t have a choice but to stand there looking at the mess.

L, of course, is a master detangler. After reassuring me numerous times that she didn’t mind, she took over the Sisphysean project and let me finish getting everything else together. I even had time to shower. When I came back down, a bit more relaxed and with shaved legs, she had made great progress; one side of the chain was fully detangled. And she had the ingenious idea to tape the chain to the pillow to detangle the other side, and then to eventually use the pillow to flip the chain onto my body when it came time to put it on.

Something I think about a lot is how impossible it is to convey my amazement at the talents and abilities other people have, specifically those that I do not. Like of course all of my friends are amazing and talented and beautiful, but one of the best parts of getting to know people better and in varied contexts is seeing all of their skills come out. Like I imagine us all as video game characters, where you have a certain percentage for strength, cunning, technique, etc. etc. And L, along with her many other advantages, has a fully maxed out detangling bar.

I said before that I could not create without an audience. This is true. But even more true is that I could not create without the guidance those I hold dear, even if it’s mostly subliminal. To untangle something, you pick a strand and follow it through the bumps and bunches. You hold the chain delicately in between your fingers, like a child’s hand, and help it through the rough spots. When I create a new piece of art, I am channeling my thoughts and emotions from the frenzy into a single stream. And all the moments and feelings and wisdom my friends have shared with me smooth and grease the chain until it’s free.

The artist need not worry over the loneliness of his apartment; his friends are letting themselves in as we speak and have brought fresh flowers to fill the empty bottles with.