How in the hell did I get so many artistic friends?
A photographer, a painter, a fashion designer, and so on. Numerous times, they have referred to me as the writer of the group, though I humbly urge them not to. I do dick and boob jokes and not much else.

I didn't plan on it nor am I "collecting" them. I used to have an actress friend, but it's not like I'm going to go and replace her to complete the set. Though I wonder. What is it about artistic people that attracts me to them? Is it that they own a sense of style? That they wear fancy clothes even to casual events? That they live in a world of imagination, abstractions, and alternative thinking? That they have experience being exposed to art that contains the morbid and overtly sexual? (By the way, many respected artists throughout history have several penis doodles. The museums keep them in a back room with discounted copies of Superbad DVDs.)

Being with these types of friends makes me want to be artistic too. I'm new to art. Art was never something I felt I even had the ability to do. It's so intimidating. Going through elementary school where everyone had draw certainly made me aware of who had ability to make pretty pictures and those who could not. By the time I ended the 6th grade, I was clearly one of those who could not. At the very most I thought that I could only do was create weird, little abstract pictures on photoshop. Photoshop filters galore! So even then, using that program never gave me knowledge of lighting, values, or the knowhow to make things look like real things.

Not to say that abstract art doesn't have its place. Imagine the reaction to abstract artists in a time when people only made landscapes and portraits with technique being of the utmost importance. Not realizing abstract art's potential, I'd picture the closed-minded masses of the time giving their equivalent of

Art like almost everything in our world is social, political, economic. Society (codeword for society's hegemonic elite) determine what is good art and what is bad art. Only we can give pictures, sounds, and whatnot those distinctions since there is no intrinsic value to smeared paint with a certain arrangement. Interpretation segregates the art that should be placed in a white, antiseptic museum and the art that's simply a waste of paper. Paper that would have served the world better as toilet paper. Sometimes society is simply not ready for certain things.

I guess this gives me some kind of hope. While I might not be ready for art or art may not be ready for me, there isn't anybody who can say with absolute certainty that I shouldn't do it. Unlike math or chemistry, in art there is no right answer. I have lived a life in which I compulsively break down everything in good and bad. I had to have a good personality, good morals, good education, good grades. But now there is a way for me to be just me, for I can only be me. I can't be "good" in every way imaginable. I just can't. Feeling the need to be makes me feel like breaking down.

Thank God herself for Facebook applications. If it weren't for the graffiti application I probably still wouldn't be open to one of the most basic artistic skills: drawing. In stark contrast to what I did before, I tried my hand at doing portraits. I basically had to teach myself how the human face is proportioned, what differentiated male and female features, and most importantly to keep going at something until it's completed. I think that was kind of the problem before. It was foolish for me to think that I should be expected to draw a something perfectly on first draft. I can't believe I didn't realize it sooner. Outside of art, my best showings in writing, speeches, social relations, etc. has come from situations in which I felt the need to pursue. It took ages of adjusting, molding, and refining and art is exactly the same way. That's what I learned from Facebook graffiti.

By far, this is my favorite graffiti. I've improved so much in technique since I did this almost a year ago. But the woman in the picture is a friend, leading this .png file to mean much more than any random drawn face on the Internet. So maybe I don't have to make the most realistic details, create best design work, or have vast knowledge of how the eye perceive color. I just need to make things that mean something to me, and if I'm lucky, something to others as well.

As of this moment, I can say that during this summer I made something that does mean something. I created something that, for once, I'm fully proud of. It may not be the greatest or the most refined or the most tasteful. In fact, people might call it a piece of crap and I expect people to call it a piece of crap. It would be so tempting of me to call any detractors narrow-minded, ignorant, or not understanding, yet by no means can I question their validity. Theirs' is as good as mine. I cannot exert myself as a critically competent artist and have everyone believe me. I can't hope for that. What can hope for people reading this is that they at least respect how much of myself is laid out in the open, including my own credibility. At the very most, I want my loyal readers to recognize my intent: how this piece might brazenly reflect our global society and the leaders who guide its people.

I believe that this perfectly encapsulates who I am as an artist and a human being. I'm more than happy to expose this piece to all of you. When you see this, you will all think differently of me. It used to be a part of myself, but now I like to think it belongs to everybody; so that everybody may become emotional, thoughtful, and inspired to do art like mine. Please immerse yourself in it...