Censorship and Viewership Brought Shame to My Body, Art, and Job: How I’ve Been Functioning Within Society’s Gaze

I haven’t made art in a long time. Which is a little funny, because I’ve started into the music world and one of the types of musicians/singers I’m working towards becoming is definitely called an artist.
But in all seriousness, there’s been a dramatic shift in my creative output since I’ve been able to make a living from my creating.
Ever since I graduated high school, I was on an entrepreneurial journey with creating. I was painting clothing to sell, creating journals with my artwork on them, painting lights, and having prints made in a variety of media (including wearables). This all felt novel and like I was one of the first people to discover these online resources for prints, but as I grew older, I realized it wasn’t a unique idea I had which was a little disenchanting, but I continued to make and experiment, I was always searching for something new, fresh, that hadn’t been done before.
Enter 2018, I’d been doing nude modeling since I was 19, mostly it was with my friends, for figure drawing classes, or when I traveled and found paying gigs outside of my city that helped to cover my expenses. But this year was different. I’d been an artist on Patreon for over a year at this point with minimal to no success, well it depends on how you define success. When I pulled out my first $98 from Patreon and was beyond thrilled to have my paints and supplies covered for a little bit, that was success to me. In 2018 I was also in a transitional…