Amy E. Fraser Death

The top of the keyword search list in my blog statistics today was “Amy E Fraser Death”. Haaaaaayyy! I’m still alive! Please don’t count me out just yet! I’m gaining my second wind, working on the Next Chapter, and doing my absolute best to revive life back into my sleepy art career after a decade dormant! Please don’t wish for my death so soon. I have so many things I still want to accomplish! I mean I have an entire World Domination plan in progress… Not really (your business) but I do apologize to my beloved Instagram followers for abandoning you on all three of my Instagram accounts Lady Fray Bakes, Lady Fray Doodles, Lady Fray Paints. I know it basically looks like I died, but hello! Obviously I did not.
When I disappeared from my Instagram platforms in August of 2018 I was experiencing some extremely emotionally consuming family stuff that I needed to immediately attend to. I stepped away from all social media (basically the entire outside world) to give my family my full attention. My family has always come before anything and everything. But, when things returned to “normal”, and I realized my child wasn’t actually dying from some mysterious disease, I began to reevaluate my circumstance. I realized what I had done, is what I always do, as a wife and a mother, and I decided I wasn’t happy living my life on “pause”. As women, I think most of us make sacrifices for our families, above and beyond. Often these sacrifices are not specifically asked for or expected, they are unnoticed, the small things as well as the large. It isn’t just about giving up time; it’s about putting yourself last. These sacrifices become entire pieces of your original self that one gives away, represses and eventually loses altogether. Instead, women become vessels filled with other people’s needs. For most of us, this is love, this is family, and this is what we impose on ourselves. Until one day, we realize there is nothing left of the woman we were before we took on the roll of Wife and Mother. Or at least this is what was becoming true for me. However, this could also be due to the fact that I had a broken childhood and I unconsciously overcompensate in the opposite direction.
Long story short, when things got quiet and the immediacy (and distraction) of the crisis had passed I fell back into the “norm”, that which had been a constant but low grade depression since “The Rabies Incident”. I promise to elaborate on this event further at another point. For now: I received a rapid series of feral cat bites one very cold night in December 2016 during an ill fated animal rescue. As a result, my right hand became severely infected, later scarred, and I had a very bad reaction to the rabies shots and the numerous rounds of antibiotics. As a result I was forced to give up working on The Legend of Hare Terra. More thoughts on The Legend of Hare Terra at The Artist’s End Goal
Back to post family crisis 2018. They say if you are unhappy to fix it. I’m not one to wallow so I decided I needed to make a big change. I realized that this disappearance of self wasn’t good for any of us, that falling into these idealized rolls and expectations was mostly my own fault. So I am the one who needed to fix it. In order to do so I needed to take responsibility and reclaim my time and self identity. Another thing I needed was to free myself from distractions like social media. Admittedly Instagram has proven to be super addictive for me so I haven’t returned. I know that was rude and unprofessional. I would most sincerely like to apologize to all of the wonderful friends I made around the world who I abandoned without explanation. I would also like to apologize to everyone who was counting on me for their entertainment and inspirational needs. But a girl needed to prioritize, to save herself in order to survive.
My solution? Starting fresh. I’ve covered this to some degree in previous posts so I won’t go beyond stating that on January 2019 I deleted my old website (which was hacked and I was locked out of anyway) and as a result, accidentally deleted all the images on the Exalted Beauty blog. So I decided to start with a clean slate by partnering with Fine Art America and making my artwork available for Print on Demand. I immediately began by uploading all the artwork I thought was pretty and suitable for Home Décor and merchandise, such as flowers, animals, abstracts, designs and doodles. As the year progressed I introduced the Sourdough Bread Art from my year and a half on Instagram as Lady Fray and then the Exalted Beauty Medallions, because they too were a big chunk of my art career, but I still felt like something was missing. I realized I needed something more real, more Me. Not just the June Cleaver, the Hockey Mom, the baker, Medallion lady and floral painter, but the old Amy E. Fraser, that pain in the butt, confrontational little Feminist bad ass. I miss her; but she’s not Dead people! She is still in there somewhere; I can feel her clawing her way back to the surface.
Over the past few weeks I’ve been delving further into the Amy E. Fraser art storage archives and I found some truly amazing stuff. I mean, wow, was I prolific and so talented at such a young age (lol). I’m only kind of kidding. So now I am in the process of sorting, photographing and editing my old artwork and putting it up on my website as I go. It’s offending some, frightening others, apparently not everyone is as thrilled with the results of this self discovery journey as I am, but that is okay. I am getting to know myself from the outside in; saving my sanity by reintroducing the crazy. This not yet dead woman is embracing and collecting all of the parts and pieces so she can become whole again.
You know what I also realized? I have a lot to offer, beyond the artwork, almost 30 years of experience in this business, almost 20 of those years online. There is wisdom to share. As a young artist I would have been thrilled to hear from another artist who has been through it, even if only to learn from her mistakes. So as part of my rebirth, my re-envisioning of self, the Phoenix Rising if you will, I am sharing, the good, the bad and the ugly. Hopefully you will learn something, but if not, it will be entertaining at the very least. And hello, if I keep blogging maybe people will stop searching to see if I am dead?
As far as the art goes, I think some of the older work is still pretty great. Besides, let’s face it, you can see by what I created that I don’t care overly much about what people think. This is therapy for me, you don’t have to watch. But you know what? I discovered that my old work now has fresh impact on a brand new audience. The paintings I posted have already made a difference. The work has sparked new and interesting discussions on a number of important current issues and brought me closer to individual people around the globe. You know that other Amy, the idealist with the big dreams of changing the world with her art? She might get her opportunity after all. I’m not actually dead.
For more Amy E. Fraser art and information go to Aefraser.com