Line Art Puppets and Rebellion

You can just skip the backstory for the art and move your eyes to the pretty picture. Most of my art process are already explained here and here. The rest of the text below are just random bits of pieces about me.

Both art pieces were made with rebellion and puppets as a theme.

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These two doodles go from way back during the bottom points of my life. I’m a med student from the Philippines and education here is never cheap. When my father got into a vehicular accident, I had to temporarily stop due to financial reasons.

Went to work temporarily on a call center. Reasonable pay rates for a third world country and entry level. I learned a lot from telemarketing and marketing in general. Concepts that people take for granted when online. It opened my eyes to the world of business which is another story to tell.

Both drawings share my sentiment on how much employees at the bottom have freedom in the business. You just follow orders and smile even when you’re halfway towards your daily quota of verbal abuse. I tell you, people change personalities when they are on the phone especially when they are talking to strangers.

You talk with people from all walks of life while working in this industry. From average workers to CEO of companies, I could see marked difference with how they talk over the phone. It’s a depressing work for a creative mind. To cope, I just doodled on the sidelines never wishing to lose the skill.

When you work in an environment when everything comes routine, there’s a gravity that prevents you from growing imaginative. Things are already thought out for you and you just need to follow without thinking outside the box. As much as organizations like to preach creativity is important for a business to survive in this digital era, the reality is that only those at the top of the food chain have a better chances of successfully expressing creativity with little consequence.

That type of work environment was just not for me. 2 Months on the job and I just wanted to quit and move on to freelance writing. Writing offered half of what I could earn in a month from doing call center work but it was less stressful and I can take charge of my time. But it wasn’t economical. I ended up doing both jobs and sacrificing sleep for 5 and a half months before totally burning out.

These are the images I’ve created from that short hell. It speaks to me about oppression, depression, and wishing for freedom from my hell.

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Stuff I never mentioned on my posts before:

I give away the drawings I make to a friend in exchange for their scanning services. I get to keep the digital copy and they take away the hard copy. Fair trade I think. I don’t have a scanner. Hoping I earn enough to buy one.

Medicine gives me the same feel of working in a call center. I need to keep creating art to cope.

I can write short stories that will never win any contest. More stuff about me here