Redesigned, rebooted, reimagined.

Redesigned, rebooted, reimagined.

Written by Ryan Nieto

“He is no longer an artist; he has become a work of art.”

-Geoffrey Palmer (Welcome to the Pleasure dome-Fuitness Mix)

The action or reaction of people within large systems of varying complexity often determines the shape of a life. The endless cycle of destruction and recreation is like the evolution of nature, culture, and ideas. A sublime dance that drives at the heart of all things.

This past July, I was thrown into a new context: an overwhelming juggernaut of the new, toppled established order of the familiar. Putting it gently does no justice, as this was a time of extremes. Such polarizing feelings of loss and gain, happiness and sadness. Yet, as I delve into this new area of my life, the constant thread in all this, my works of art, my stories, my dreams.

These facets have been integral to my being ever since I could pick up a pencil or say the names of my favorite dinosaurs (Tyrannosaurus Rex: basic, I know, but I love my Rexes accurately, not monstrous or skin-wrapped). I digress. What do I mean, and how does this relate to the theme of this month’s issue?

A world of wonder and fear, a world that is ultimately me. I want to take myself out of the ordinary and into the extraordinary.

As stated, July was the start of many bold changes in my life, and I’m still reeling/contextualizing my new sense of self and being. Let us start with the whimsical before the melancholic: I celebrated my 28th birthday this past July. With age comes wisdom, or at least that’s what’s expected, especially now circling my 30s. However, as is my tradition, I like to take a moment to reflect on my life up until that point. A stroll through the museum of my mind, I look upon my past in all its aspects: the wonderful, the sublime, the terrible, and the painful.

In this, I find my “inner myth” to quote someone of great importance to me, someone who segues into the next aspect of that July. The owner of those prolific words is my now ex-girlfriend. However, before I continue, I should plant a pin and contextualize things. Our relationship lasted for nearly four years but ended amicably as we thought it best to go separate ways as we had long started to drift apart. We healed, mended, taught, and grew in that time together. Within our time, I was able to begin my journey into therapy and self-love. Furthermore, it granted me the language and space to rectify and reconcile my repressed trauma from generations of suffering and repression. Yet, this wasn’t the last of the changes.

I came OUT.

Throughout my life, rumblings, thoughts, and feelings would appear and I would gently repress and deny them. I had felt an attraction to both masculinity and femininity. Yet, through the lens of my conservative Christian upbringing, these were great and terrible sins, punishable by damnation. I didn’t want to be damned and bring shame to my family, so I repressed, resisted, and avoided all sense of my sexuality, resigning myself to be alone, to be a monolith.

In addition, through the filters of Machismo culture and being the oldest son with two younger half-siblings in a divorced household, I was elected to be the male role model in their lives, adhering to the “traditional” patriarchal definition of masculinity, one of emotional suppression, labor, and protection of those under my charge. My childhood ended at 8; I was the man of the house in a manner of speaking and taking on the role of our estranged fathers. That was my self-appointed fate, my compromise. Rather than live and love freely, I would hold myself in tension and not let myself be anything but an idea. I was forged into an idol; I couldn’t be “weak,” I didn’t have time for “feelings,” and I couldn’t let my family down, my brothers, mother, or grandparents.

This was survival. This was war. Yet, throughout that meatgrinder, I would escape into the world of museums, science fiction, comics, and film. I would gain freedom and draw to life heroes to escape this fear. I created an extraordinary universe where I dreamed I could be free, where I was powerful.

As long as this intro is, it was necessary to understand how this affects my art, especially my world-building projects, concepts, and stories I have been working on for nearly three decades. In my time on this planet, I have lived a dynamic and hectic life of great stories, great sorrow, and great moments. I have finally moved into a better place, emotionally and mentally. I traded aggression for joy, toxicity for productivity, and ignorance for understanding. Hate with love.

After years of self-work and therapy, I am finally free; I am free to consider that I am queer and free to love my pansexuality. All this is new to me, and I am still learning about myself in the context of sexuality and gender expression. Yet, I am still me. I’ve never been more of me, and my art has only begun to blossom with this newfound power—a power of self-actualization.

All this has changed and enhanced my visual and narrative works. I better understand my characters’ core and struggles, for their battle was ultimately mine. I feel like I belong and can be human again, I don’t have to be perfect or the most extraordinary person to have ever lived to matter. I matter here and now in all ways that I present.

Finding empathy, kindness, and acceptance of myself is a constant practice, and I now understand the power of that. I hope to champion that power in my works. I have endlessly chased that extraordinary, that sublime of wonder and fear. From posthuman gods of the far future to scientifically accurate monsters from mythology, I have always sought to merge my passions for art, science, culture, and philosophy; to build living worlds infused with detail, intention, and meaning.

Now that I am out, my stories take on a new context; they have always existed as a proto-form of therapy and an escape from the instability of my childhood. However, in my adulthood, with all that I have experienced, they are now subjected to that scrutiny as I have been redesigning these worlds and their inhabitants. I seek to understand the meta-narrative of my life in theirs and our ongoing story.

From my youth to the present, my characters saved me repeatedly. They always find their way back into my life when I need them the most— redesigned, rebooted, reimagined.