28 Days 28 Books
28 Days of Emotional Masochism
An Introduction
28 Days of Emotional Masochism came from a very real place of pain and confusion. I’ve been mentally ill my whole life. Diagnosed with depression when I was four years old, spending my entire childhood in and out of social workers’ offices. There isn’t a time I can remember where I felt normal, whatever that means.
But I’m older now, I’m 20. I thought by now I’d have it figured out and my life would plateau into overwhelming normalcy - it hasn’t. As I’ve developed as an artist and found my niche in bookmaking and illustration, the natural next step was to track my development with the creation of books. The 28 day time frame has no specific meaning, it just felt like a realistic goal for making a book every day.
Each book is an exploration of a different emotion or thought I caught myself trying to repress on that specific day. This is precisely why the title is 28 Days of Emotional Masochism. In part this is documentation of a performance, in which I force myself to feel feelings I usually avoid and solidify them in objects. I hope, if anything, this encourages my viewers to have difficult conversations with themselves to become their truer selves.
A Conlcusion
I’m writing this with 5 days left. This has truly been one of the most honest bodies of work I have produced to date. Every book and every title captures a moment in time filled with raw emotion and humor, they are truly a reflection of me.
My biggest takeaways are not ones I expected. I expected to come to an end in this project and look back and only see negative thoughts and emotions. I was wrong. I repress positivity as much as I do negativity. I guess it’s easier to feel bad when you pretend everything is bad.
My second biggest takeaway is that emotions and thoughts are not reflective of truth. Just because you might feel a certain way does not mean that it is objectively what is true to a situation. Feelings are mostly reactionary based on personal experience we build off of. Most importantly, with that information in mind, there is nothing wrong with letting yourself feel, regardless if it’s what is “true.” Truths differ from person to person, what matters is how we move forward with our actions.
I walk away from this project feeling better and more honest with myself. I feel brave. Some of us heal through talking, others through bookmaking for an obscure period of time. Thank you for taking the time to take a look at this little collection of books, I wish you all the best.
-Angelica Aranda