Gabrielle Bell Quotes
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I wanted to be a "serious artist." Serious artists didn't tend to be funny. But that didn't get me a lot of attention. And just growing older, you can't help it, you take things less seriously.
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Everything is Flammable was the first full-length book I was able to finish. I started a couple others, but ran out of steam. This one had momentum, I never got bored or discouraged. It is made up of short pieces, which is where my comfort zone is. I'm more of a sprinter than a long-distance runner. When you do a short piece, you get in and get out; you don't linger.
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There are a zillion possibilities that you can do on a piece of paper; there is no rational way to choose. So you have let something else speak... so I can't really remember which comes first, the dialogue or the pictures. It comes from that place where it sort of all comes together on its own.
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Anxiety is so pervasive in my work, it's like it's not even a thing because it's always there. Like air. I have to work through a layer of anxiety to get to anything else. It's embarrassing to me when people point out to me all the anxiety I portray in my work. I don't ever want to write about anxiety again but it'd be like leaving a huge gap in the picture.
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Book Everything is Flammable is an odd format though, not quite a diary and not quite a memoir. I was working on it as it was happening. This was gratifying to me.
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“And I though about people all over the world, having panic attacks. We all must, right? Even those with the soundest of mind must come face to face, sometimes, with the fact that we will die one day. What varies is how we cope with it.”
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“My yoga teacher says to think of your thoughts like skateboarders passing through our line of vision; just watch them go by, don't try to follow them down the street.”
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“I don't run for my physical health, though that's a lucky side effect. I run because I'm tortured inside. I run to soothe the violence in my mind, the depression, the panic, the disappointments, the shame, the frustration, the helplessness against time. You could say I'm running from something... though I'd rather think I'm running TOWARD something. Though I'm probably running just to stay in one place. It seems like most of life is just maintenance, after all.”