Written by Sarah Morrone

The World is Our Canvas!

Let’s face it- our world would literally be black and white without the influence and culture of art! As teens, our lives seem to revolve around the endless cycle of going to school, doing homework, and even studying-blah! With this being said, we are constantly in search of a way to express ourselves and display our individuality. In other words, we want to show who we really are and be free from the confines of our schools and even families. Our thoughts as growing young adults seem to grow beyond our heads which cannot contain all of which lurk inside. Thus, we seek a release or outlet for the bottled up feelings and thoughts within us. What better way to liberate these thoughts than through the therapy of art. The world of art is greatly accepted among teens because of its positive effect in our lives. The walls of Carmel wouldn’t be the same without the inspirational works of our talented students who contribute to the experience at our school. I recently got the opportunity to sit down with one of the many very talented and artistic students who lurk amongst our very own halls at Carmel. His passion for the craft and work on the Ryerson newspaper instantly caught my eye as a student who truly connects with art and represents all of the spirited artists of our school-more so, this student represents all that an art student is thought to be.

Name: Kevin Zaworski

Age: 17-years-old

Grade: 12 (4 years attending Carmel)

Have you taken any Carmel art classes? How would you describe your experiences in them?

Yes, I have taken all four years of art at Carmel. I liked the classes mostly because I enjoy making and creating art. In grade 10 - 11 the focus was more on certain styles of art, while grade 12 we have more choice in what style we want to do. I love this because I enjoy open-ended assignments where I can sort of do my own thing instead of following a format.

Tell me about one of your favourite assignments you did at Carmel and why it stands out to you.

We once had this assignment where we had to draw a skeleton on this huge piece of paper, using conte (conte is like chalk). It was just a fun assignment because we had little direction. Well, we had direction but being the rebel I am I made the drawing the way I wanted to. That’s what I said before- I like doing it the way I want to.

How old were you when you first became interested and began experimenting with art?

I have always been into comic book art mainly Disney and like that tumbled into other things, but I guess it wasn't until the summer of grade 9 that I really began to take art seriously. It was at this point that I began to look at people like Warhol, Pollock, and Kandinsky.

So your mentioning all these artists that you’ve been interested in have they influenced your works in any way and how so? What do you admire about them?

Kandinsky and Pollock are a part of the expressionism. Expressionism is a style of art that started in 20th century Germany and in short it expressing emotions and feelings. I have been so keen on expressionism because if you can throw paint on a canvas and make millions that’s awesome. That’s why I love Pollock. Even though all he did was throw paint around on a canvas, he really revolutionized the way I approach art.

Adding to that, do you feel art is a good way of expressing emotion then and is that one of the main reasons you enjoy it so much? Do you think teens such as yourself might see it as a release?

Yup! Angst ridden teens (like me) do find it as a release. However, I enjoy for the "release" but also I have so much to say it would be not worth it getting on a soap box and wasting my breath. But with a painting, or a drawing or heck a comic, its semi permanent and that way my views are displayed for everyone to see and interpret.

You mentioned other artists that have influenced you in the past such as Pollock. Have any musicians, teachers, or other mentors in your life really helped inspire your work in some way?

Well as far as much goes, my biggest influence of my work stems from the work of the band Stars. I always have them playing when I draw and I can listen to them over and over again as they inspire and fill me with endless ideas.

What genres of art do you enjoy the most and why? You’ve already mentioned comics…

I have grown close to comics in the last couple of years through the opportunity of meeting many cartoonists. The cliché answer is that I want to create stories with words. However, looking at modern art I think we are in a time where it’s not as it used to be. I like comics because they can be used in so many ways

 such as propaganda, teaching tools, etc. As far as "genres" I say underground comix are my favorite.

What are some of your recent works you are proud of? I understand you are doing some work with the Ryerson newspaper?

The work I am most proud of would have to be my Ryerson comic. I have been doing a comic for the Ryerson newspaper-an autobiographical comic. Not many people my age can say they are published!

Do you have any advice for young students like yourself or maybe for those who feel discouraged or unsure of their abilities?

Just do it is all I have to say. Don't be afraid of critiques, because honestly, they are failed art students.

Do you feel art is as important as say, math or science is in our school and should it be this way?

Yes I think it’s just as important because without art, our culture would be lost.

Finally do you plan on getting in a career of the arts and any future plans in your work / things you are looking forward to explore?

I think after school is done I may want to become a full time illustrator. I am currently looking for inspiration in everything because who knows what I can do next.

is that okay?

I am scared.

because i don't want to be my mother
it's inevitable
it's going to happen 

it's in my body
hibernating in my bones
swimming in my veins
it will consume me soon enough 
and no one will understand 
like my dad did for her 

i don't want that 
not for me, please not for me 

i put things off 
because i don't want to face them

because i don't want to downright tell you that what i'm writing wont make sense to you
or anyone
or even myself

it's just i get angry and i don't know why and i want to know why !

and i cant't figure it out please help me 


i can't tell you why
i can't tell you why 

i cant tell you that
in simpilest words
my mom is crazy
and so is my sister
and im seeing the pain its putting her through
and i can't deal with that
but im next in line
that my dad doesn't love me as much as her
wouldn't care as much for me as her
wouldn't hold me as tight as her
wouldn't tell me everything is alright
because i'm not her 

i get un my head
but i think ill be alright if i just breath
and i dont want to bring you down with me 
cuz this is my own problem 



i shouldnt have told you anything
really
i don't want to let you in
i'm too fucked up for that.


but that's what scares me 
how my mind jumps like this
and my heart races
because i know it's coming alive
 it will be with me soon 
sooner or later it will become me 
consume me
be me

but you have done so much for me
so now i shall write about you
but where do i even begin ?

at the idea that, i will begin to know you as i to relate my ideas to your actual being?
i will try and that will satisfy my hunger for knowing and figuring out exactly who, or what, you are 

you don't want to face reality i know that much
because if you did you wouldn't hide behind pot

but what are you hiding?
what don't you want to  face? what are you so scared of?
reality alone is enough to scare me away from it.
but you, you are so much more complicated than that

why don't you care about 'important' life situations?
or do you actually but want to make it seem as though you don't because if you did you would have to face them and that is too much for you?

why don't you care about school or your future?
most teenagers don't either. 
but how can anyone not? doesn't anyone want to be better than this ? better than who they are right now?
or is that just me? maybe i am just as fucked up as everyone else is because i am running and that seems to be my motivation.

i asked you if you wanted to leave this town you said no.
and i was genuinely shocked because everyone who grew up here wants to leave here.
has running away from the only places you once called home make one want to now call this a permanent home?
i guess i would do the same as you
but me, i need the city and blinding lights and speedways and life.

i need to get away and be greater than this small town bullshit

i know you feel infinite when you drive fast
like nothing you ever were before
i know because i am just like you
i know it makes you feel alive
i know, although you are not, it makes you feel more powerful than anyone else on the road
then that corporate business manager with three kids and a wife
you are better than he is for that moment
you are defying everything and everyone 
you are powerful, alive, you can feel it in your bones
maybe like writing for me, the road is your paper and the wheel is your heart 

so write me a story with your engine 
the best part is you can slow and even park whenever you need to babe 
unlike life, the highway never ends and the exit ramp is just a detour to more crap destined to devour you

roll down the windows and feel the wind brush against your golden skin 
it whispers
it dares you to go faster
and you do

fuck the speed limit, the law, fuck the rules
you live your life like you drive your car 
funny how i put that together huh 

i realized that as i looked out your window fucking stoned out of my mind
and i like that though so much 

reckless, alive, fast.

and although some people may not agree with this way of living,
i goddamn envy you because if i was even close to living my life as such
i would be satisfied.

i realize you are more of an artist than me in a way.
i am not the girl for you 
i have come to that realization
but i still want you because, don't we all want what we can't have?

i love you

---------
so here i am again
yearning for time alone with my macbook so i can explore, i must say that is the most appropriate word to use, thoughts of you in my mind 
you don't know how much i devour you because on the outside i am hard as shell
you would never once think it so that you eat me alive 
straight to the core of my bones 

but you do and i hate that you know
i hate that you can have this, or anyone for the matter, effect on me
i hate that you can make me so blind to everything else that i must explore you

because i still don't understand you like i do most people
that statement is fucking wild and true

your hiding from something but i don't know what
life isn't as bad as you make it seem

although it is true that life is a fucking bitch
i know that

but then i think of everything else there is in life

like about fucking dying, and holy shit i'm just full of hope tonight
but then i think about living, i mean truly living and feeling alive

i think about liars and getting fucked over and pain and suffering and guilt and anguish and turmoil and depression
and then i think about friends, i mean those good friends that would do anything for you 
i think about music
fucking music is goddamn amazing
love 
yeah it's fucking overrated in the sense that love is all you need
sometimes it is
but not all the time 
sometimes you need hope 
and sometimes you need life 

i think about family 
but family is fucked most of the time
everyone has a dysfunctional family
everyone 
everyone i know at least
but thats fucked

when i think of family i think of my sisters mostly
because they're family

my dad in a sense 

and this is odd because this is what you do
you get me thinking of me 

me

and i don't like that most of the time

but i guess i do now
i guess i do

but back to the topic of you because this is about you not me
but perhaps i wish you could see this

because perhaps i want you to learn me as i have come to begin to learn you
but then again my mind works at a dozen thoughts a second
and that's just me

how do i get to sleep at night
is what i want to figure out

it is odd that for such a passionate, which probably isn't the best of words, writer
i am a horrible communicator elsewhere


like the fact that words that i want to yell i cannot fathom to whisper 
but then again that's just me 

i know you are deeper, more complicated, a whole of a lot more then you lead on to be
but you are unwilling to show that to me 

and i have to be content with that 

i guess

if you just want me for sex stop fucking with my head

but i don't know if you do right now 
do you?
can you just tell me?

but these are questions i will never ask 
and i am expecting answers that will never come 

now i am just writing endless bullshit to keep me from confronting what has led me to explore you once more

i don't know i seriously don't know what it is this time 

i am fucked up aren't i 
i think too much don't i
i am insane aren't i

i should write something productive with these vicious thought about you my muse
maybe a novel or a short story or anything 

but no 
i'd rather write simple nothings that just simply explore you instead of characterizing you into a novel or some other work of art i might conjure

is that alright for a simple night like tonight babe?
goddamn the hardest part

is knowing that i want to be with you right now but 
i don't deserve you

i don' deserve you.
i play these keys like a pianist would play the keys of an old familiar piano 
i know my way around words
hell, i know how to manipulate my own thoughts 
its pretty messed up 

but so are you 

if we weren't together i'd fucking want you 
you intrigue me is the best way to put it

you are a character to me and i sort of resent the fact that i am involved
because being a third party observer would be much more exhilirating for me as a writer

but being involved means i have feelings for you that hold me back from truly fucking you up
maybe that's why GOD or fucking fate, oh gosh, i shouldn't go that far

made it the way it is now
because you are something i shouldn't devour as i so often do to others that my mind has come across

you are a mystery and i am the detective
i love and hate my job

because although i am looking for answers
the ones i find will never truly satisfy my hunger

because i will never truly know you the way only you know yourself
and i fucking hate that

but i can become you with the art of my mind
just watch me 

swallow my words and taste my thoughts

( i will become you
as i want to 
as i need to to know you
as i don't think is possible
but i will try as i need to 
but i wont get into thoughts of me
because there my mind halts and i am unable/ unwilling to process what you are thinking)

>

I'm alone 
funny i might say that in the sense that i am not with anyone in my excuse i call a car
but also in the sense that, well, you know

im doing 145 in an 80 zone
and fuck it feels good, wild

im alive, my bones are alive
i feel, for once in my entire goddamn existence, alive
and that's all that matters right now

i am searching for any feeling of life right now because i don't feel as though i am living, breathing, being
i feel still
even at 145 i feel still
but possibly, just maybe, if i accelerate a little faster, a glimpse of life in my bones will ignite 
150, 158

im not a sob story, don't feel sorry for me 
everyone has shit in their lives because quite frankly, shit happens

i don't know where im going
again, not in the sense of my excuse i call a car
although i actually don't quite know my exact destination i am traveling
but i mean, the highways of my life.

highway, what a dumb word
sounds like something a stoner might be
so i might fit into that category 
it should be called  lowway 
because thats all i goddamn get 

160 and im not alive yet
i wish the tires beneath me would ignite into flames and i'd fly
i'd crash, hell, that would make me find an ounce of life

but they don't because i am still on the pavement as my mind races
i am 17 years old 
what a goddamn understatement 
because i cannot remember one of those 17 years that i was actually living, actually living

my name is forget me
because that's what you'll do
you won't remember me because i am not important

not in the bigger scheme of your life anyway
as i wasn't to my parents'

i don't feel sorry for myself because that's a waste of time
so don't


i feel like pulling over because this isn't working

i feel as though i won't listen to those feelings 

i must keep going
i can't stop
what if i lose my chance of finding my existence because i stop?
i can't risk that 
not now that i've come this far


first gear, i feel nothing
second gear, still nothing
third gear, all my hope dissolves like sand in an hourglass. 

so now what? 
i'm so far from being alive, but so close to the unwanted fate on the opposite end of the spectrum,

i look out the window beside me as drops begin to fall onto the concrete speeding beneath me
i look down 
i take a double take

because now i see it's not water, salt, and toxins hitting the ground
it's tiny sparks of fire flying like sparklers 
burning through the rubber of tires
and metal of cars' engines

i begin to swerve in order to avoid the wrath of flame
but now the sparks have grown to what seems like shooting stars

hitting the ground and then bouncing right off to hit the passenger side window of the car beside mine
the sky gets dark
i mean really dark
i don't mean night dark, i mean storm dark 

i mean dead dark
like the darkness that hangs so low it can suffocate you

i have to pullover
but i can't! 
what if when i stop the flames devour me whole and all i am is dust
i will have never found my existence
i would have never found myself!

i begin to scream
get angry as sparks dance on my windsheild,
laugh at my windows
cast shadows on my mirrors 
are now flying in lines of colors

so i accelerate to as fast as this goddamn piece of shit will allow me to 
160, 165, 170
i am flying !
175, 180

and i am still going too goddamn slow!
but then it seems i am in slow motion
what the hell is wrong with me

everything slows as my head whips back and my whole body begins to tense up
i begin to shake as my head hangs down
i grip the wheel, well aware that i am still driving but cannot control my own body 
hallucination


my head whips back up and i am sitting parked on the edge of 










 

mood: indescribable music: dum dadum dum

but i will.

I do feel alone a lot. 
I do find my mindset alarming 
I don't like myself 


all these thoughts could publish novels
but I want to save them, explore them when i want to 
leave them a mystery so I can say i AM more than this



but in reality 
reality

I am not.
math science 
art english 


i could write something meaningful tonight 
this morning whatever


but i want to write nonsense 
because thats truly what i am- fucking nonsense


i could own this livejournal teenage shit
i could own it 
the potential i deny 
the potential i never really --


5 am and I've got so much more to loose to this screen

blaring white and pure unlike thoughts and shit my mind's crazzyyyy
because i wasn't supposed to write bullshit tonight i was supposed to say what i wanted and leave but thats not me and that will never be me because i am too fucking complicated to sit down and write  I AM ALONE without getting into other crap that will never mean anything to ANYONE.


And as the snow collected on rooftops, Sarah sat alone in her room thinking of how Christmas really doesn't mean anything to her, and how 
the brightness of outside was taunting her at that hour of morning, 

Hey Sarah

I don't like you.


I'm going to sleep
because if i don't i am scared of where my mind will take me

i can hear it 
i can hear it 


it wants me to give in.


It wants to play.