Over the last decade, I found myself more and more conflicted with my entire existence. Something was horribly wrong and the anxiety was growing. I needed to find a balance, even if temporary, so I taught myself how to paint and also used Steinberg Sequel and Cubase 4 to create music, to accomplish this. The need to do this was overwhelming and throughout the years I used art as therapy, I began to come to terms with who I really was and what I needed to do to make things right. Once I began taking estrogen and blocking the poisonous testosterone, the need to create art simply vanished into thin air. While estrogen alone will never make me feel complete, I feel it saved my life.

Paintings

A lot of my paintings were kind of a Yin and Yang and/or Control of Chaos.

This is my very first painting and it is untitled from around late 2005. This represented the conflict I had inside myself. Pink represented the female in me and black represented male. I was struggling with how I felt inside and how I felt I should be to please society. I was terrified when I was painting this because if it turned out to be a failure, meaning if I was unable to express myself at that time, I would have never attempted it again.

I was still not confident with my ability to express myself and sometime after the first painting, I created “Bleeding Soul”

Bleeding Soul – the words

My soul inside it’s bastion host,
waves of poetry splash against it’s walls,
trapped forever,

tears from the rampart fill me,
but the other side is dry,
there is no more room

i stab my soul,
to bleed from me,
the poetry you could never see,

my palette leaks for all to see,
prisoner no more,
i’m free…

Then came “Tamed Chaos” and this was a turning point for me. After I finished this, I realized it wasn’t just a fluke and that I actually could use art to express myself.

My most popular painting titled “Dream” was created around June 2006. A blogger found it and put it on his site along with other famous artists such as Rothko and Pollock. Obviously I was honored but am under no delusion that I feel I belong there. Anyway, this page was the bloggers last entry and my painting showed up in Google Images when searching for “abstract art” where for years it was the very first image that popped up. How lucky was that?! Conservapedia has it in their Abstract Painting section.

And then came “Depression’s Mirror”. I am usually pretty resilient when it comes to depression and snap out of it in a few days but I went through several weeks of it and just wanted to die. I started painting what I was feeling inside and what I saw when I looked in the mirror, and after it was finished, my depression vanished. I don’t know if it was timing or if the painting was therapy. Mike Knapp, curator at the Mosi Museum in Florida, contacted me about putting this on permanent display in their “mental health” exhibit and it is hanging next to Munich’s Scream and a Van Gogh self portrait. They blew the image up to 6′. I have not seen the exhibit in person but here is an image he sent me.

Not a smiley. No explanation necessary.

Photography

Tutu Girl – Experimenting with the pink-black thing.

Music

Ambient Flavored and Misc

Androgynous Journey – This was completed as my estrogen started taking over. I already knew my path but was terrified of actually making the transition in my life so I was in denial. It made it easier for me to look at my transition in stages. I never cross-dressed (some people don’t get that). It felt natural to Go through this androgynous stage before making the big announcement.

Happy Heart

Bipolar (no, I don’t have that but someone in my life does)

Land to Sea

Zuit Loops

Classical Instruments

At Peace

The Ascension – Original

The Ascension

Survival

Longing

Path to Necro

Dance

Ghosis Ping

Oh Yeah

Ambystik Rave

Ambiosis

If you want to download my music it is on iLike.

There has been just too much drama on Facebook lately. Yes, I instigated some of it but it really gets old after a while. I have deactivated my Facebook account for an undetermined amount of time and have moved to Google+. Google+ gives you incredible control over what you share and what you see.

Dana Lane Taylor on Google+

You can migrate your Facebook Friends to Google+ by following the instructions in this video. It works!

How to transfer your Facebook friends to Google+ all at once

Stop putting us all under the Gay Umbrella.  I work at the University of Pennsylvania and have seen plenty of your people soliciting donations for “gay rights” What about Transgender and Transsexual rights? Are we all “gay” to you?  Stop appropriating us then sweep us under the rug. Stop saying we don’t exist.  Transsexual AND Transgender people exist so say it. SAY THE WORDS! If I don’t hear these words used by the ACLU I am going to really be pissed off.

There was a major incident that led me to not trust bloggers and facebook users who didn’t attach their true identity to their words.  I am still very suspicious of the motives of some people who hide. However, after seeing the recent attacks on pretty much everyone, I realize some do need to hide their online identity but still need their voice to be heard. I think I overreacted when I made this knee-jerk decision.

Posted previously http://danalanetaylor.com/blog/2011/07/06/sock-puppets-or-stealth-women-born-transsexual-or/

I am going to recant my earlier statement, however, I am going to be selective. I would like to apologize for eliminating your voices. A special apology to Andrea for my inappropriate response as she left my site.