Untitled Image From the Summer

One of the things that I like about working digitally is that I can make images I just could not with pen or pencil or charcoal or anything like that. Just couldn't do it. Like the following image. I'm sure someone out there could make a collage and draw on it or hell, even draw the whole thing, but not me. I have to "cheat" with hi-tek digital tools. Not that there's anything wrong with that.
Well, here is the image.
I got the elements (the old lady and the astronaut) a while back because I thought that they looked neat and maybe I could use them or something. Turns out I was right. I've actually used the astronaut a few times before, but I think this may be the first with "Grandma" there.

I made this image in the summer, when I got my computer up and running again. I had help getting it going from my neighbor who does his own digital work, so I decided to show him some of the things that I had done and that I was proud of. That got me wanting to work in Photoshop again. But the problem was that I was not very inspired. This image is incredibly derivative of stuff I did about 6 or 7 years ago. I don't necessarily have a problem with that, I mean it had been a couple of years since I really created in PS so I needed to start with things that were familiar, but it didn't really make me feel more creative. Compound that feeling with the fact that I've been in the throes of depression for nearly 3 years and I was on too high a dosage of a medication I probably shouldn't have been on in the first place and you start to get this image.

I like to start throwing stuff together and see where the elements take me (another reason I like digital so much: layers! undo! save/save as!) and then see what it all "means" after the fact. It's a way to let The Brain tell me what it's thinking, if that makes sense. So here you have an old lady who, in this case, looks confused. And you have an astronaut, who builds a career around having his head up in space. These things seem to illustrate a sort of separate-confusion-thing pretty well (for my purposes here, anyway) and they contrast with the check pattern and the simple grid pattern, both of which align with one another, incidentally. Grids and checks are simple and predictable and you never ask "what the fuck?" about a grid or checkerboard. So the image as a whole maybe says "this should be simple and easy and predictable, but I'm completely lost." Pretty accurate description of how I was feeling at the time. And still am, really.

Of course, I may be reading all of that into the image and it's really just an old lady, an astronaut, some simple patterns, and a chance to use the word "fuck" in a piece. Twice. Or maybe that's where The Brain comes in. I dunno and I guess it don't really matter. The image is there and it says what it says to me and I can live with it. I hope it says something to you that you can live with as well.