This is a chain of thoughts I started putting together at the end of 2019, since I realized I was getting depressed and the fault wasn’t on Canada’s coldness, but on the lack of future perspective. And to unravel what smells fishy is to find what can you do about it.
Mind
Being curious and getting out of your comfort zone (this applies to any significant change you want to do in your life) is good, but gets more complex over the years. With each new cycle you accumulate experience. But if a new beginning requires a start from square one, where do you store all your experience? There is no room in “square one”. In your 20’s you have less experience to let go, than at your 30’s, 40’s, and so on… Will it be increasingly difficult to grow? The horizon is blurred.
Body
The gym is a curious place, each one goes for different reasons. For example: having the strength to paint an entire building with my two arms. But the ads displayed in there only focus in “looking good”. One day I saw an anti-wrinkle cream, and remembered one of my first designer jobs. The client was a cosmetics multinational, and the concepts were:
-Old skin? You have a problem. Solution: Cream to become young.
-Young skin? You have a problem. Solution: Makeup to feel self-confident.
(I was in my 20’s and my problem was paying the bills).
As I warmed up in the gym and the TV displayed images of anti-gravity butts and anti-age magic, I wondered: What is this war against time? Time is not fighting. It takes more to stay healthy, yes. But not accepting it is fighting against yourself.
Traces
Wrinkles have weight, they tell our story in plain sight. Is that why we’re supposed to hide them? Until a certain age we are required to maintain the appearances, behave with a certain protocol. Then comes “the elder’s carte blanche” (the superpower I await with open arms). And when a true smile rises in between the bone pain and a worn-out-patience, the image is impressive. A happy elder strikes me as the ultimate ideal – and yet, how little marketing it has!
Study
Vancouver is the most Asian city outside of Asia. This Lunar New Year was celebrated with concern. The parade was a long procession of old people. I saw the most beautiful faces in Vancouver, and did something I’m not used to: I took photos and studied them, looking for wrinkles that showed “peace aged in skin”.
Codes
My characters come from imagination, where there is no race, gender nor AGE. To paint them I borrow some codes from reality (such as three-dimension), so that people can visualize them. But not everyone can understand them. Many people interpret simple and stylized shapes as children. Painting happy scenes contribute to the confusion, as many people tell me: “colorful happy things are for children”. Even if I dislike it, those codes are in the social reality we built, remember: to wrinkle, fall over and grow are problems. Aging is bad.
Can I tell a different story? Can that story reach discouraged adults? I tried adding the code of aging to my happy and round characters. I started transposing those wrinkles I studied from people, into my fantasy style. Quite a challenge.
Living in the present is good, but the idea that everything deteriorates over time, is installed exactly there. Fortunately, ideas are malleable. I still have a lot to work on this series. But I wanted to share these thoughts, because when life is chaos and there’s nowhere to run, believing that it will only get darker does not help. I can’t see the future, but I can imagine a destination worth arriving to. That gives me energy to do things today. These new-old-characters are not well or badly drawn, they are full of life well lived.
*This article first appeared in my newsletter: 03/24/2020 – Animalito’s Stories: Looking Forward
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