A. oksner

State your name, your age, and creative occupation. 

My name is A Oksner. I'm a painter and a muralist.

How would you describe mental health at the moment? 

I feel sturdier today than I have for the last couple of months. I was talking about this last night with someone while I was live painting. My friend and I were talking about being in a moment of change, and a lot of our peers being in a moment of change. Obviously it's a new era in a lot of ways, but also generationally. We're taking on a new role as adults in a different way.  We're not just of drinking age, our grandparents are dying and our parents are becoming the oldest generation. We're taking on the world, and that is really hard and scary work. 

I feel overwhelmed a lot of the time. If we really do want to create a better world, which I think all of us are hopeful about, and claiming, then we're going to have to construct that better world. Knowing that and not knowing what that looks like and fucking up is, really embarrassing and exhausting. 

I feel like I've had a hard time recently. I experience chronic pain from migraines. I didn't realize that sadness was a symptom because for years I would black out. I just started reading “The Migraine Brain.”  I’m halfway through. I was prescribed this in high school and never read about  it. My neurologist gave this to me. This book has several sections and I just got into the migraine triggers section where you're supposed to find your trigger. So obviously it's terrifying. But the section about the types of migraines and vocabulary about the chemical difference between those and a headache, which is really nice because I've known it's different, but it makes it easier to describe to people when they think they know what you're talking about. It's a literal neurological disability.  

Being able to think about that chemistry and where it comes from has been really validating too. I used to blackout when I had migraine attacks and then in the last couple of years I remember them. Even when I emerge, sometimes I just don't trust my body. That transition when your body feels weak or embarrassing or you have an attack in front of someone then trying to learn how to feel strong, structure my life so that I don't get caught in that shame.  The brain and the body thing. It's the same conductive goo. I think about my brain as a center for all of the information that the body carries. It's not just like mental things are going on in your life. It's like a web. It depends, but I've had periods in my life where pain lasts a month. I've had periods in my life where it's every week. But in my attacks I vomit, I shake, my tongue goes numb and I can't speak or move. I feel like a sponge for everything and I have no capacity to carry everything hitting me. 

I had to go to the hospital in Wyoming in the middle of touring and live painting with a band this summer. And that's when I decided this is the time  where something has to change.

Why are you an artist?

What I feel like painting is about to me, it's like studying the world through this thing that allows me to be invited into spaces. It's this excuse to be with people in so many ways and learn together. I think about live painting as a class; show up to a place, make marks and notes, and just share time.  Painting is biased. It's made out of what my hands did while I was thinking about something with you. It feels abstract to think about, but it's drawing all these different ideas into a symbol that describes whatever ideas we're hunting. It's a summary of a thought, so I want to help describe ideas like that. I think also because one of the symptoms of migraine is photophobia, which is pain from light or sensitivity to light and because of that, I can find so much pleasure and comfort in learning about light. Not just shriveling in it. I didn't even know until I was 19 that I was a visual like this.  I took my first black and white film photography class, and my professor just basically forced me to carry a camera all the time, and because of that, I was like, oh, my gosh, I'm a visual thinker. We're all visual communicators. Look at memes. We can absorb complex ideas when we layer. We're all doing it all the time.

What's your ultimate goal as a creative?

I feel like that changes. I want to practice, be a practical physicist and bounce light. That's the way I think about painting. It's playing with light. So I want to do that the best I can. I think it’s my job to make a beautiful life or a life that I like and I'm proud of, and then my painting is the byproduct of that life. It’s to be brave and contribute to a better world, yeah that sounds highdrama for a Thursday morning. 

When you're in a creative slump. What do you do to get out of it?

I feel that most of what I make is habit based. So every Wednesday I live paint in the same spot, and try to add structure because the last couple of months I have been swimming. 

I feel like everybody has a way that they first realize they're going to die. And it's like, oh, I'm never going to read every book. I'm never going to eat every food. When I realized that you couldn't read everything, you couldn't eat everything. The first time I actually experienced loss, I was 16 and one of my friends died very suddenly. And that's when I was like, oh, it's not that you are preparing for life, and then you live life. This is life. This is not pre life. And it made me take everything sort of seriously, which I think sometimes pushes people away, but at the same time, I'm not fucking around. The kind of life I want to find takes trying.

If you weren't pursuing the arts, what would you do? 

What I studied was political communication, which is like political science and philosophy and journalism put together. That's what I studied when I was in DC. When I was a teenager and when I was in college, I thought I was going to work in policy and campaign work, and that's what I did for those years and I still could see myself doing that. But that’s on language of change and the agenda set by this world has a huge impact and somehow doesn’t.

But me personally, my most elastic brain years were being swallowed into this beast. I'm interested in contributing to how we make the world, and I feel like I want to get back there in some ways, but I don't know right now. What would I be? I'm like, what could I have been? What will I be? Maybe I would be an electrician.

What has been the hardest thing that you've had to overcome while pursuing your career?Probably just trusting my body. 

When do you feel the most true to yourself? 

When I let my story of who I am grow. I think about the stacks of selves I have been. It’s a daily thing to meet yourself everyday. Maybe it's when I'm with people who help me trust myself. If I'm alone, I think it can be simpler because there’s no translating. 

When was the last time you cried? And are you comfortable sharing? 

This morning.  Honestly, I cry a lot, and I have been mad about it in the past because you can't hide, but it's your body completing a circuit. You're washing your internal turmoil. 

What's your greatest fear in your life?

I think in the past, unintentionally, I have steamrolled people who I love, and I express certainty that I don't feel by accident. Harming people. I think too, allowing my focus to be taken by shame I don’t believe in. I feel that we're all trained to be so focused on our shape, and obviously it's important, and it has a huge effect on how we're treated in the world. Some shame is important, can help us grow better but if we look at our bodies as failures we shrink. I was talking to my friend about this. It's like people cheat themselves out of so many joys, pleasures, like even during sex. Worrying about performance when that's not what anybody is doing there. Or it doesn't have to be. We’re so much bigger than what we see. I guess it's the first way we meet the world. But what's going on is so much greater than that. Even the passive stuff, like your blood fucking cleaning itself. That makes me worry way less. Especially on sturdy days where my body does feel simply functional. I am also trying to think about my body as my home and not being mad about every leak, or every failure. The realization that this is the vessel my life gets to exist, through and in this place, then I get so much less stress.

What's the heartbreak that changed you as an artist?

I feel like heartbreak is an emotion and less of an event. Like, I know the feeling, the sensation is something that comes and goes, you know what I mean? It's kind of over prioritized.

It's not where my favorite work has come from, because the suffering will come, it’s joy that we have to make. It's not like I want to ignore it either. It's not that it's not important. It's just that I'm not hunting for it right now.

What's the most complex relationship in your life? 

First I think family, self, time. Well, this is something else that I've been trying to do, is not be mad at my feelings or focus. If my emotions are information about what I do or don't want, based on what's happening, then if I'm mad at that for just being on my mind then I'm not even dealing with that thing.

When you are dead and gone, what do you want to be known for? What kind of legacy do you want to leave?

I want to be a good friend. I want to help create messages and moments that contribute to something better than I grew from and that others can build on. I feel very safe and excited when I practice that, and I just feel like you're helping because I do feel like if we are hoping for that much good in our lives, trusting each other and making stuff together and being friends with people who want that too, it's so necessary to practice. I feel like creative life is another language of love.  I feel like what has been coming out in so many different ways over the years, that a lot of the structures we're made out of aren’t really made for healthy life. The ripples of old worlds, those are in us, and we have to actively try to not fail at loving. But if we're not practicing creating things with love, then we're not going to ever do it. 

When have you felt the most loved? 

When somebody's being honest with me. When I can be my full grubby baby self and I'm accepted and invited. When somebody trusts me.

If you could tell your younger self something now, what would it be?

You don't have to rush. I also feel like when I was little -  I'm short -  and people used to pick me up and move me around a lot so I didn’t know how strong I could be. Or that being small and smiling is strength.  I actually had a teacher who had me practice saying no. And that I think about her often because some boys were messing with me in elementary school, and she had me practice saying no to them. And I think that's been really important. But younger me was brave and playful. I’m proud of them. Have fun, do your best, have fun. Be friends with people that make you want to be a better person. Otherwise we get too distracted.  Okay. If it's 20’s self, I think I would say income is a puzzle. Not every single thing needs to be equal compensation. It's so complicated. There are things other than compensation that make an awesome life, and some of that is literally food. And learning how to recognize it, how it's actually coming and what’s imagined.

What do you define as being happy?

I think happy is a state, not a trait, so it's something I define super loosely. I don't think anybody feels one thing at a time. Like I was saying, conductive goo. Because happiness is a part of connectivity and comfort and possibility. So if I feel in my body, I’m ready to meet the world.

Visual art has given me a way to address those things without always flattening them into words. So I feel like art, while it is challenging and the challenge of being a business, is really work. But I do think there are more times per day where I find happiness than when I was sitting in fluorescence 40 hours a week or when I was in situations where I didn't feel safe and respected at work, whereas now I have so much agency in what I think about. 

To me, that's power. So when I feel like I'm harnessing that power in a way that's adding up to something I believe in, where I feel supported and trusted and like, I can support the people I trust. That happens more often in this stage of life than I've ever felt,  and I hope that just continues to grow. So even though I do agree that there is an emotional weight to this way of living, everyone holds that weight, but we as artists have the chance to address it. 

I do think about myself as a documentary painter – there are so many different ways of telling a story and telling a truth, and emotions are part of that.  People will think that what I'm doing is really emotional, which it is - I'm sure the people who love me will say it's top of the surface -  but to me, I think it’s a way of marking time. I feel like the more that we accept our perspective as part of reality, the more we can change it and grow. I feel like that's what again, we get to learn together. These are documents of that. That is work. We are trying to figure out what the fuck our era is, and images help us make it real.

Tell me something you love about yourself.

I love the selves that I build, and I love that I can see and meet the world every morning. But today, I love watering the stoop garden and then making tea, and I love wrapping myself in fabric from people who love me. Anyway, watering the plants and then watering myself is something again. I started growing a tomato plant gifted from a great friend during covid and that made it a lot easier to make choices every day. Because doing one thing to start the day and knowing it's like, oh you need water, I need water, drink water. Especially brain stuff. It's learning the basic ingredients to life. Everybody knows them. Like exercise, sleep, hydration, actual food. But it's really hard to do all those things within the mess. So I love that I'm learning how to live better, and learning how to make my fucking life. I also love that I didn't lie today. I could have just allowed an interaction to stay more peaceful maybe. But I think that I'd rather make something on purpose together than a private peaceful skit. Or like a peaceful skit that's not real. Yeah. So I love that today, even though it's going to be more work today, probably in another conversation about the same things, I'm glad I don't have to start from where I felt this morning, like I already did that communicative work. Does that make sense? That's one of the hardest things to do. To be honest.