I never thought I’d feel this kind of joy in creating again. It was something I prayed for in the dark, past witching hour, after getting my kid back to bed from a night terror. For months now, it felt like my heart had been put to sleep with no hopes of it ever waking up. My identity was lost to the eclipsing weight of motherhood, dragging me down to a night terror of my own. Don’t get me wrong, I love being a mom, but that side of me had completely taken over and I felt I had no other purpose anymore. I felt empty. Drained of the creativity and inspiration that once overflowed onto the page. That is the worst headspace you can be in as an artist, because without that spark or drive, what even is the point? You’re just another NPC in a noisy world. An error in the source code.
Last November, I attempted this week-long challenge, where I posted animated art on my Instagram daily. It brought My Sleeping Heart out, and I thought that would be a great jumpstart to get things rolling. But after that, no more personal art was born out of my hands. Only commissions kept my hands busy and I was frustrated with the color choices I was making for my book, Squalo & Mage. Life became repetitive and my world began to go dark. I had let the depressos in again. But almost three months later, I actually started to feel something. Sparks. Little sparks defibrillating my heart. It might’ve been the timing of me weaning my kid from breastfeeding, but I started to feel better. I somehow got my body back. It’s taken me long enough, but I’ve finally addressed the emotions I’ve kept bottled up inside—anger and apathy.
I was suddenly feeling productive in February. After finally completing the overdue inks for my book, I reached out to Rob Cham, one of the greats in the komiks world, to consult him again about color. He’d already given me advice before, but there was another aspect to the colors in my pages I wasn’t completely happy with. It really does help to reach out to others when you’re feeling stuck, and after consulting Rob, I was on a roll. In a week, I finished coloring 34 pages (my publisher asked for 32 colored pages for test prints), and I was feeling so damn good about myself! While I was coloring, my agent sent me back notes for the latest draft of my YA novel, and she was happy overall, but there were still some plot points we both wanted to revise. I was fired up to write, write, write! Things were starting to look good again.
Not to belittle my wins, especially since writing and illustrating a 233-page graphic novel isn’t exactly something you can whip out in a snap, but it dawned on me that I let depression take the wheel for far too long and it made me forget who I was. I was putting so much pressure on myself, because I felt I wasn’t doing enough and whatever I drew didn’t make me happy or proud. I ended up setting my duties aside so I can wallow in my sadness and feel sorry for myself. While grieving the death of my father, I grieved a little too much for the life I once had. Realizing this, I knew I had to do something about it.
I spent the past weekend surrounded by 4,000 artists and designers to let their creative energies flow through me at Graphika Manila, the largest creativity conference in Asia. It was there that I felt my heart slowly start to wake up. It was there that I set my head in flames.
The speakers shared their stories, processes, and advice that helped them get to where they are today. What really amazed me was how these brilliant minds fought through their own wakes of depression and consistently showed up to work. And because of their willpower and persistence, they were able to blow over creative blocks, collaborate with dream clients, and make work they could be proud of.
Fueled by the words of the speakers onstage and heavy music steadily holding a circle pit in my mind, I put my grief, depression, and motherhood in the backseat and let my anger take the wheel. There’s a line from Architects’ latest single “Brain Dead” (honestly my favorite track off their eleventh studio record, The Sky, The Earth & All Between, as of this writing) that goes “I’ve been finding bliss in the apocalypse” and I thought about how I could visualize that.
Anger guided my hand with every word and doodle in my sketchbook and I ended up filling five pages in an hour.
When the lights turned back on for the break, I went through what I’d drawn: doodles of me holding hands with Death, me wrapping an arm around the shoulders of a skeleton like we’re best buds, flowers sprouting out of a skull, my head bursting into flames (with spinning animation). Now you might be all like, “Oh no, Kara! Are you suicidal????” To answer your question—HELL NO! With sparkles and everything! I’m in no rush to pull the plug. I may have been diagnosed with major depressive disorder with a sprinkle of anxiety, but I’m the one holding its reins.
My doodles from that afternoon were a bit darker than what I’ve done in recent years, but I see hope. I see me. Even with these seemingly dark themes surrounding the things I had drawn, I felt myself smile at those doodles that actually made me happy. They were really more like rough sketches than anything, but the ideas were there, slowly coming to life before my eyes. There’s a lot more I’d drawn, including a doodle of Takashi Murakami, who was this year’s headliner, and a shark swimming in coffee, but besides those, I saw a recurring theme—Memento Mori.
And so I thought, “Let’s be stoic, but make it cutesy.” This just might be my new direction as an artist. A post-shark era, if you will. But just to further emphasize, these silly little doodles of me hanging out with Death aren’t cries for help, but a deep exhale of acceptance. Life is death blooming, after all, and no matter how dark or morbid that might make me sound, it just isn’t. It’s simply life and that’s where we all go in the end.
Walking out of Graphika Manila, I felt refreshed. I could see neon colors and ribbons of pink, purple, and aquamarine swirling around me and making explosions overhead. I was mentally moshing to the music of Architects as I went down the escalator, ready for the drive back home to my son. There’s a lot to look forward to, including notes from my editor for Squalo & Mage coming in the next few days, energy to work on revisions for my YA novel, and ramen to be had. But before all that, I’m just grateful I had a great weekend.
And just like that, I was happy. I got my whimsy back.
This post originally appeared on my Substack newsletter, Karaland.