Part of my learning experience ... Growing Pains

I have a huge but strange favour ...

I need your help and patience.  I need to migrate from using "Sonya" to Jacquelyn.

It is incredibly hard to explain, and doesn't really make sense on a strictly rational level.  Recently, I have been dealing with many identity issues, dealing with splitting off and seperating from the "negative voices" of the past.  Sadly enough, recently A few times I have heard my name and connecting it to "his."

For the longest time I never thought much about names.  I was very emotionally disconnected.  Names, especially mind, never really meant anything to me - apathy, dissaciation with "labels" given me by people who are long in my past and have no bearing on who I am, even really who I was for the past 20 years ... other than haunting me.  This is a chance to step away from past shadows, to finally accept who I am, to finally start my life.

Not sure if it is hormones talking or the realization who I am and that my life is finally starting.

I am not trying to be difficult to confuse ... I know that many found the whole transition idea difficult.

Sorry about rambling ... this has been a while trying to figure out how to say this ... it feels strange, it doesn't make sense to me ... but it is part of growing, part of figuring out who I really am.

All part of my learning experience.

Painting ...

I was ... in another life ... a "professional" artist ... that being I had showings and sold pieces ...

That ended 1990 ....

Almost 22 years to the season, I have put paint on canvas on a project that has been very close to me ... I am attempting to re-create a piece that was one of the last pieces that I finished then ... and perhaps a painting that I miss the most - it meant a lot.

Wayy back then, I was very ... perhaps "eclectic" might be a good word, perhaps one of the few areas I could be introverted ... I closed doors, locking myself in with basics - way too much alcohol, a bit of food, oh yea candles ... LOTS of music ...  and 3 days or so later would come out ... with 3-4 finished pieces, and writings (poetry) ... it was VERY rewarding ... I had no real sense of time ... just me.

A lot has changed since ... but here is what I am doing.

Manet's Races at Longchamp:

I took a small section ...

"blocked it" so I could plan the work on canvas ...

and then started it ....

adding first colour ...

--Work as of 15 Aug 2013

I work with pointillism ... hundreds, thousands of individual dots of blurred colour (looks really bad up-close, meant to be viewed from a distance).  I usually do a few layers, just to make sure the colour is "just right" ....

I will update as project continues ...

Restarting VLog ...

After months of doubt & frustration I have restarted my vlog.  After posting my first moths ago, I have decided that, no matter what I think now, I want something to look back and say "I have changed".  Since I am my worse enemy and critic, I just won't watch them until a bit further down the road.

If you watch, please be gentle. 

(I am writing this on a new tablet - still trying to get used to - so I apologize ahead  of time for embarrassing or offensive /auto-corrects/)

Watch "Restarting my Vlog" on YouTube