Posted by Tezzle on May 20, 2022
So when I came back to social media after my last semi-regular "Burn it all down, this sucks and is bad for me" account deactivation binges, one of the things I decided to do this time was respect my own privacy. I dug up my oldest OC, Tezzle, and went back to using them as a general username for art stuff like I did in highschool. I made a personal account as well but Still don't use my real name there either. But all of the art I've been making lately I've posted on my personal account, oddly enough.
My personal account is primarily for 2 things: 1. Promoting and celebrating leftist activism and 2. being a trashy horny lesbian. One of those things led to me following the ongoing & currently successful Starbucks unionization effort sweeping the nation. I initially assumed Texas wouldn't have their name on that map for a couple more years at the Soonest...but then not only did I find one organizing here, but it was in My city MINUTES from my apartment! I drove straight over that day and gave them a nice tip. At first I was coming in whenever I had the time, but then I found out their manager had been trashing the signs of support customers put up. So I quickly whipped up a sign and stuck it on the board. Sure enough the next time I came in it was trashed. I said "Ok...this means war." And I got a cute idea...
A simple challenge. We all know what a hydra is, mythically speaking. We know what it does when you try to kill it. Honestly and Truly if the management would have left the little guy alone, there it would have sat, single-headed and small.
......So Anyway that was 9 days ago, here's where we're at:
Every Day I put more and more effort into these. Every Day a single person who has yet to confront me directly has torn them down, at this point Probably Knowing a new one will appear the next day. I'm glad the baristas there have been totally supportive, I made sure to get in direct touch with them about it, they Love the union hydra, and I love making it. It's been such an empowering way to practice Letting Go of Caring about making something for public consumption. Other than my quick and dirty phone pictures, no one but the small number of people who were there the afternoon and evening after I drew it will see the actual piece as it is intended to be seen. But I refuse to get lazy, I refuse to stop having all this fun making these every day.
Not only is my personal art improving, I also offered to design the logo for the starbucks union this city's For Sure Getting Next Month, I am so fucking confident in all the upcoming elections. So they commissioned me and they loved it, and they wanna make pins and stuff!! So I even got a graphic design commission thanks to just...Going where my heart takes me??? It's corny, but like it's not untrue.
ALSO I got a better paying job! Similar hours per week, and a longer commute, so it'll still be hard finding time for personal things, but the extra cash will keep our heads above water a little. Hopefully we can squirrel some away now and again for The Big Move we wanna make in a few years. Thinking about it all on THAT scale really helped me relax. If I can manage to get a stable day job that doesn't kill me and not try to overly-prioritize my free time for the next few years, I can just go where my passions take me and not feel like the clock is ticking and I gotta be on my personal-project grind to get out of wage-slave jobs ASAP. I wanna see where this path I'm on is going, and in a few years I'm sure I'll be SOMEPLACE better off than where I'd be if I spent the same amount of time banging my head against the wall about this game.
So while I am not "hard at work" on LIBERTY, everything I've accomplished since I made this Comradery page has been to its benefit. I'm super vibing and learning to love making art again. I Need to chase this for right now. I'm never not thinking about LIBERTY, but also I'm never not thinking about a lot of projects.
(Did you guys know I'm also trying to develop a card game? >_> Maybe more on that someday...)
- TEZZLE