sodacansculptures
Soda Can Sculptures
301 posts
Hey, I'm Stan! [They/Them] I take soda cans, cut them up, and create sculptures out of them. Sometimes I do other media. =]
Don't wanna be here? Send us removal request.
sodacansculptures · 5 months ago
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Found this poor soul packaged like a DoorDash to Jaba the Hut. Couldn't just leave him like this. 😢
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Rescue effort below the cut:
Wheelin' him off for the prisonbreak...
(Gotta say, dat side-eye be a bit ungrateful-seeming, doe.)
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The distortion makes it hard to discern where I'm cutting. Trying to not dismember the patient. His insurance doesn't cover amputation and I can't be going around giving out free surgical procedures, regardless of if they are accidental.
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It's like excavating a fossilized specimen. It's like if Pokemon was Spectrobes. It's like my therapist trying to unearth the "real" me under all the masking.
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A crown for the Drama King of side-eye:
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FREEDOM: ACQUIRED!!
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If only Nintendo had colored him blue and replaced those noodles on his head with little Mario cap wings so he would fit in with his own evolution line...
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Thanks for joining me on this journey of freeing another wrongly imprisoned Pokemon. My goal is to release all the falsely accused, so if you have a Pokemon Power Bouncer that I've not yet freed and would like to sell it to me (or donate--I'm poor af but certainly don't expect handouts), PLEASE hit me up! 😅
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sodacansculptures · 1 year ago
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A new year is starting in just a few days. Look at all the things you’ve survived so far! You are strong. You are a creator. You persevere when things get tough. You have done so much, and you have so much left to do. The new year will bring new things. You will continue to grow into a unique and amazing human being. Keep up the good work!
I appreciate the encouragement! Your words remind me of a quote that I can't remember it exactly or from where I heard it, but it was along the lines of, "As long as you're alive, there's still hope for change."
There was also a Tumblr post on here years ago that was about living to see the news of tomorrow, like if something miraculous and game-changing happens.
Anyway, both of those quotes and your message make me feel better and like things may turn out okay. :)
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sodacansculptures · 1 year ago
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I'm so sorry you're in such a horrible situation. You are going through so much and I hope you know that even if it doesn't feel like it at home, there are people who care about you and are thinking about you. We all believe in you and know that someday you will be where you want to be. You have more strength than you know and you deserve the very best!
Thank you so much. It's for sure hard to feel strength or care when the things thrown at me regularly feel derived from neither, so I really appreciate your kind words. <3
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sodacansculptures · 1 year ago
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I’ve been following you you for years now and still peruse your blog to marvel at your talent. Thank you for being you! Hope to see you posting again soon
Thank you, I really appreciate that! It makes me happy that my art isn't dead and still doing what it was put out there to do. :)
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sodacansculptures · 1 year ago
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I started following you on Facebook some years ago, and then apparently forgot all about your stuff. It just popped into my head randomly and I wanted to see if you're still active and if you're still making soda can sculptures?
Hi, I apologize, I have no idea when you sent this since Tumblr (at least mobile) doesn't have time stamps, and for whatever reason, I don't get notifications about messages. You're the first person I've heard who has migrated from my Facebook page to my Tumblr, so thank you for joining the blog! Way more commentary here than there where my mom can see.
To answer your question succinctly: I am alive, and that's about the best I can say I've been since covid. 
(I have donation links at the bottom, if you feel moved to want to help me.)
The extended director's cut answer:
After I made the Eevee sculpture, grad school ramped up and I figured I'd return to sculpting after I got my degree and settled into a job. However, I graduated in Spring of 2020, so the job I had lined up was withdrawn, and with all the budget cuts and layoffs in my field, I was competing for jobs with people who were trying to reenter the field and had decades more experience than me. 
I did 100+ applications (I lost count at 120-something), dozens of interviews (including getting to the final round of all that had such a format--which is a stupid format. You don't need to meet me in a formal pretense 3 times, ask me riddles, have me take multiple hour-long aptitude tests, plus make me travel on my own dime just to tell me "no" and not even send like a "2nd Place Loser" gift basket or accept my LinkedIn request or anything). I got super stressed and super depressed. 
I was so busy with trying to find a job and trying to deal with the breakdowns of not finding one. I tried applying in all the fields I was capable of at all levels: executive, mid, and gruntwork. I was turned down from entry level, no-talent-necessary jobs because I was overqualified. I was turned away from the others because of the lack of experience and unprecedented level and caliber of competition.
I was (still am) unable to pay my bills and, when not having breakdowns, I was calling, emailing, filling out applications, etc. for any and all financial aid. It was very arduous work and tedious with all the documentation they wanted from me, hold times on the phone, etc. 
I had a non-profit (ADVOCAP) laugh at me when I asked for rent help because apparently they were overwhelmed and I wasn't going to get anything as I didn't have a job or kids and was considered a non-priority. Later when I was working with the ADRC, I asked if my case manager (I applied for disability, but I'll explain in a bit) if she knew of any rent help. She basically scolded me for asking and told me that it was unethical of me to seek that because "that's for people who actually have a chance." People who have jobs, she means. She explained that that money wasn't meant for me, and that was a whole unexpected slap in the face with a bag of dogshit. Didn't realize we had devolved into a utilitarian society quite that quickly.
I started working with FSET (my state's employment training and search help program. I was literally trying everything. Like I had also called my college and emailed all my professors asking for job help, and they had no answers other than like, "look online"). After months of no luck, FSET eventually convinced me to sign with a temp agency.
I worked 2 temp jobs that treated me like garbage (worsening my depression) and also paid me as such. I had lost all my savings to trying to stay afloat and my free time was non-existent, unless you count the hours I'd spend in the middle of the night just walking around my neighborhood listening to music--in an attempt to stop what seemed like endless crying--while I cried.
I tried selling plasma but they rejected me because I couldn't ever get my heart rate low enough, as my antidepressants increase heart rate. I tried going off of them, but I was on them for a reason, so I need to go back on.
When I graduated, I had bought myself a PS4 as a graduation gift to myself. I could afford it and thought I earned it. All the atmosphere of rejection and failure the pandemic created for me and my link to survival (employment should not be tied to survival. I was doing everything right and the system was failing me direly while virtually no one else who shared my experiences understood why I couldn't get a job when "everywhere is hiring" and "nobody wants to work anymore") and I started to hate myself for stuff like gifting myself the PS4. I felt undeserving, like a waste of resources, etc. because those were the messages I was constantly receiving directly and indirectly.
I eventually landed a job in my field and was hired on the spot. I felt like I had hit the jackpot and finally was going to be okay. Surprisingly to everyone in my life, the job made my life even worse.
I signed an NDA due to being horribly abused for the 10 months I was there, so I can't say much more than I just barely paid off my credit card, still had no free time as I was salary and worked nights and weekends in addition to my scheduled hours because the real reason they hired me instantly was not because I impressed them but rather because they were collapsing and desperate for anyone with some level of responsibility and capability. I hated that job, was bullied and abused extremely badly by coworkers and bosses and HR was no help, and when my performance review came back with negative impressions of me when I was sacrificing so much to keep the employment entity alive and functional, I completely broke.
I ended up hospitalized for months for suicide, and part of the NDA included resigning. I never fully recovered and don't think I ever will. I think I've seen and experienced too much to return to the idea that I could be the trailblazer my professors projected me to be (I now think professors don't actually provide an accurate representation of the field and encourage with no basis for their optimism). 
The human mind is very easy to manipulate with propaganda, and I didn't catch myself being in a sort of “main character syndrome” and thinking that because I was Valedictorian of my graduating class and that I had so many national and international recognitions, awards, accolades, and qualifications that I was, for lack of a better term, pulling myself up by the bootstraps and going to be rewarded with a promising future where success is not just viable but imminent. I knew the world wasn't fair and that some people could do all the prescribed “right” steps and fail, but the operating paradigm (that had been ingrained in me since childhood from teachers who saw me as bright) I had held told me that I was far too talented and hard-working to fail. I had very little doubt that I wouldn't be successful. I was an ideal, hypothetical model of a pre-successful American worker.
So anyway, I didn't expect to have all the trouble that I faced finding a good job. At the end of the first summer of covid with nothing but rejections and employers affirming to me that there was nothing I could have improved on to get the job other than have prior experience, I was a discouraged worker who didn't even try anymore. 
That's when FSET convinced me to do the temp agencies (who dropped me because one employer who was inhumanely abusive and ironically an HR department) gave a bullshit reason about me violating a protocol so they wouldn't have to make good on their promise to hire me after the temp period. 
(I had allergies and it was literally the exact week in September when allergies were at their worst. A coworker, who hated me for some reason I never figured out and can only assume was jealousy, reported me for having a runny nose and I was immediately escorted out for bringing covid symptoms into the building. If I didn't go to work any day I had a runny nose, I wouldn't go any day. I take allergy meds literally every day of my life. My parents kept me too clean as a baby or something and didn't let me eat enough dirt, so an allergy panel showed I was allergic to every single common indoor and outdoor allergen).
Back to my suicidal hospitalization: I could say so much on the inpatient part. Suffice it to say I was never given my meds and there were no groups because they were understaffed and constantly wound up/pissed because of the uncooperative patients, so it was like prison where you had to argue with staff to get your basic needs met, and no soft surface existed and the water was always freezing, so it genuinely felt like being locked in a concrete box with no sunlight, no one on your side (they lied and said they called my psychiatrist and therapist. They never did. They also lied about ordering my meds), and no contact with the outside world. It was like a cruelly-designed Mr. Beast challenge with no reward in the end. 
My friends said I was messed up for 2 weeks after and scary af because I was in survival-fight mode that would not turn off. I also was too overwhelmed by the outside world when I got out and could only eat pre-packaged snacks for a while because that was all I was used to/comfortable with.
Part of the agreement to let me leave inpatient was to do an intensive all-day outpatient program. I was actually dropped from that by insurance because I had undiagnosed ADHD among all my other issues and couldn't show up on time or sometimes at all. I still don't have my ADHD figured out because I had to convince my psychiatrist to refer me to a neuropsych who booked out for months to test me. I did it and got “Yes, much ADHD. All of the ADHD. Very wow.” So my psychiatrist finally believed me and agreed to start me on ADHD meds.
My psychiatrist and I are still working to find an ADHD med that would work for me. Vyvanse helped for a time, but my body metabolized it too quickly, leaving me with only around 6 functional hours in the day. I'm currently on extended-release Adderall, but so far not much help and there are too many other variables that could be fucking with it, like that my sleep-wake cycle is extremely unpredictable and I have a million appointments every day, so I am constantly sleep-deprived and am actually busier now than I was in grad school or any 8-hour job I worked.
The breakdown I had triggered me to develop fibromyalgia, so that has been a whole ordeal. I'm constantly in pain, it again took many months to see any doctor about it, and the meds take so long to start taking effect that we've been trying since June to find something that works.
The crucible that was my pandemic experience didn't refine me like fire refines gold or whatever the saying is but rather left me burnt, and not in the way that you can scrape the charred parts off of toast but like BURNT burnt (I can't think of an example. Maybe a popsicle. You're not getting that back once you take a flamethrower to it. Plus the stick would crumble into ash. RIP popsicle).
My life lately is a lot of appointments I often miss and have to reschedule, arguments with various agencies and even my doctors, breakdowns, and driving for Uber Eats because no one can fire me (but it pays beans and I get flack from restaurants and customers AND Uber because somehow the driver is the scapegoat for any issue that arises. I was so proud of my delivery aptitude and quality service until the tip-baiters and people being assholes for no reason started hitting me as common and daily occurrences). 
A lot of people don't understand how UberEats works, but Uber doesn't even pay their driver enough to cover gas or depreciation on their vehicle for the mileage, much less the value of the driver's time and physical efforts. Tips are literally ⅔ of my income and my income does not cover my bills despite all the time I put in and algorithm I set up for myself that determines which trips to accept/reject for the most profit. It's a very toxic and unprotected form of employment. A lot of people lie that I didn't give them their food so that they can get a refund, but that comes back on me and risks my account being deactivated. It's virtually a fear-based system with some tricky artificial competition that Uber likes to throw in from time to time to convince us to drive for less and less pay. 
I've looked into all the alternatives like GrubHub, Spark, DoorDash, etc. but I've been on their waiting lists for years, including GrubHub booting me off their list even though I was always quick to respond to their periodic question of if I still wanted to be on the list.
Between depression and ADHD, I can't work a normal job. I no longer have the capacity to keep a routine and can't show up to things with any level of reliability despite how badly I want to. I also don't have the spoons to deal with working with others or being accountable for tasks that feel--idk how to articulate it, but like--stupid to my autism. If something seems inefficient or not progressive (like not helpful to humanity) to me, I can't get my brain to do it. And with ADHD, if it's not interesting to me/something I am passionate about (I was extremely lucky that learning and receiving the praise from teachers I never got from my parents was my passion that got me so far and through multiple degrees), I can't get my brain to let me do it. Sometimes I just can't do anything, including things I want to do, and simply end up stuck. I wouldn't last in any job that wasn't self-directed and only happening when I have the spoons to be available. My options are very limited. And Uber can be slow. I've had times where I've waited 13 hours and not gotten a single request that wasn't going to cost me money to run.
Uber has some personal difficulties for me. In the summer, I found it a little bit fun, but now that it's cold, my Raynaud's is painful and I don't enjoy having to watch out for people who got their licenses from cereal boxes and don't know how to drive in the snow. It's an unpleasant sensory experience for me to work and honestly risky safety-wise. People don't turn on their porch lights for some reason (I have a headlamp now) and don't salt their walkways, and I'm uncoordinated because my dad didn't throw a ball at me enough as a kid probably, so there's ice, the treads on my boots are shot (and I can't afford to replace them), and I get banged up from falling on concrete. 
I have a chiropractor and physical therapist, and they each said even before this that they could see me every day and still have something to work on with me. It's affirming, at least, to hear that professionals can physically feel how in pain my body is and that it's not just me being a baby. Part of it, I'm sure, is that I have PTSD (including from the traumas of my various pandemic experiences) and have horrible nightmares every night where I jerk around a lot in my sleep. I wake up every day feeling like I got hit by a bus, which is also partially why I don't get places on time. 
On my own time, I'll spend 2 hours trying to get out of bed both overcoming the pain to move and convincing myself to get the willpower to. It's so much easier to just lie there and accept it, especially when I don't look forward to having to do another day. I don't feel rested because I spent the night working my body and brain, so I'm not sure I ever am rested. I need so much more sleep now, too, with fibromyalgia. This adds to my stress of outpacing my bills and just keeping up with the maintenance of myself and my apartment because that's less time I have to get things done.
I have 4 alarms (phone vibrating plus noise, an earthquake pillow one, my Fitbit vibrating on my wrist, and a Pavlok going all out screaming, vibrating, and shocking me with electricity), and it's still possible for me to sleep through all of them or somehow turn them off while half-asleep and go back to sleep. There are also times where I will be like, “Okay, getting up now,” and then I black out and it's 4 hours later and I missed 3 appointments that will take weeks to reschedule, if the clinic hasn't dropped me for the tardiness and absence. I'm running out of clinics to go to.
On a mental level, I am in a near-constant state of overwhelm that holds me inches from a full-blown, all-day breakdown at any given moment. Something about being so stressed with no relief for years on end has rewired my brain, I think, to make the adrenaline pathway so reinforced and the stress part of the brain overlit/overactive. I don't know how to relax. Doctors keep telling me I need to, especially with fibromyalgia, but I physically cannot seem to do it. I can't focus on anything like movies. Nothing is fun when I have always-present and terrorizing (by threatening my survival) pressure from all these stressors (mainly money. I'm in a constant race against my monthly bills, and each month, they creep closer and closer to outpacing me). I'm never happy to wake up and I'm always low-key scared. I'm desperate for security in any form.
I was so unable to do tasks after my suicidal breakdown that even though my psychiatrist, therapist, and general physician were begging me to apply for disability. I had hoped I just needed a few months of R&R and would be right back to being willing and able to work. That never happened, and it was extremely difficult for me to accept the fact that I was disabled. When I finally did, I begged for months for people to help me fill out all the forms (they were overwhelming me, which is, y'know, kind of a key feature of my disability) and no one did, so I lost months of time there. I eventually just had a moment of conviction or indignation or something that I was able to force myself to do them. I'm still kind of mad at everyone who didn't help.
My therapist actually did her best to help and, when the outpatient hospital ousted me because insurance refused to pay for it anymore, referred me to the county's CCS (Community Care Something-or-other) program. They gave me a worker who allegedly had some psychology- or human services-related degree who would help me function for 1 hour a week. I think the whole program is a farce and despite spending hours on this program, we accomplished absolutely nothing.
The first CCS worker I had was supposed to come over to my place (which had become a mess. I was a messy person before, as my apartment was a graveyard of unfinished projects due to my ADHD), but with my extended burnout, I wasn't cleaning and organizing on the level I used to. So I texted my CCS person a warning that my kitchen table was cluttered. I mean it to mean, “It will take me a minute to clear the table once you get here for your laptop for you to finish the unreasonably long entry paperwork on me, and I haven't gotten the energy to declutter it yet and won't until you get here because my ADHD needs a body double right now. She, for reasons I still don't understand, canceled the visit and never came. When I confronted her about what I meant, she was like…embarrassed to the point of not being willing to work with me anymore. There was a communication breakdown that I couldn't get her to communicate with me and she was somehow scared of how much and how articulated or something I communicated that she shut down. 
I understand I “overcommunicate” from the perspective of allistics and neurotypicals [I had a bad childhood and was invalidated and wrongly blamed for things a lot, so I give as much explanation as possible to avoid any misunderstanding and articulate to the point that there won't be any ambiguities and thus can't be twisted into reason to punish me when I've done nothing to earn punishment. My caretakers as a child had their own mental issues that led them to being unreliable/unsafe to me and didn't offer me any feelings of security in relationships, perspective of reality (them taking their anger out on me and telling me everything, including their personal problems, was my fault), and ultimately everyone seems to say they want transparency and communication, but from my experiences and perspective, they don't want that. I have no idea what they really want. I give the level of communication I would want someone to give me and hope that they will just discard the parts they don't need/want, and apparently that's me being a burden or something and a “bad” quality. 
Meanwhile, I WISH people would communicate and be transparent with me more. I think I am an understanding person who has done enough work on themselves to not repeat toxic patterns and be a healthy relationship to others. I don't listen to judge but to understand so I can work with the other person to fix any problems and work with what we got, not devalue them and distance myself or abandon them. Everyone on dating apps says they want this, but I've yet to meet someone who does. I think it's that people see this as an ideal but are unskilled at the time to play their role in the situation–both in offering and responding. I think I've put so many years of therapy and introspection into working on myself that others just haven't, so we're simply on different levels. I know I'm not alone in my experiences, but it's very isolating when you don't meet people who have done the same work.
Anyway, I got assigned a new CCS worker and she did not do all that work I described. When I was told I would be assigned to someone else, I specifically asked for one who has seen some shit and that nothing I do or say will move them. They did at least give me someone older with more experience, but she either over- or under-estimated me (I can't discern which). She, working in the same building as my therapist and being basically in at least a good bit of communication with her when I wasn't around, knew that I had a lot of crap going on that I needed more therapy/support/help unraveling and making sense of and peace with than the 45 min/week I got with my current therapist. So she offered to be like a second therapist and said I could tell her absolutely anything.
As the pattern of this narrative likely already cues, it turned out I could not tell her absolutely anything. I was a few months into my transition and no one prepares you for some of the changes. My endocrinologist had only told me, “You might go bald.” I thought my years of research and consulting with transmen in my life had encompassed all I needed to know. However, we sometimes do not know what we don't know and thus don't think to ask the questions we need to ask. As probably an autistic/abused person trait of mine, I speak very clinically and technically. At the time, I had recently been speaking with my therapist about anatomical changes that triggered emotions I was not prepared for. I attempted the same sort of conversation with my new CCS worker, but she yelled me for being inappropriate. Not just scolded but legit yelled, as if I wasn't a full grown adult capable of reason and discussion.
I was confused on what I did wrong, since I thought I was just taking her up on what she willingly offered. I am also a firm believer in the Mister Rogers quote about how anything that is mentionable is manageable (which goes back to why I don't listen to judge but rather to collaborate and also why I see disagreements as us vs. the problem rather than me vs. them. I do not feel the need to yell at someone unless it's like an emergency of some sort and there's a threat that yelling can somehow address and be beneficial to the situation). 
From my perspective, I was being shut down and punished/shamed for asking for help with a problem that legit scared me and that I was willing to be vulnerable enough to share. I consider that sort of thing sacred and not something that can be trusted in everyone's hands. But the way she responded, to me, reinforced that I was a person unworthy of help: a message received from my childhood caretakers and all the people who were supposedly there to help me during my pandemic crises. 
I couldn't bring myself to trust her anymore or even want to see her again. I'll admit that's a bit of my Emotional Dysregulation Disorder weighing in, but I didn't want her in any intimate spaces I'd need to let her into in order to serve me in her CCS capacity. I had had too many things go wrong lately in that time to not shut myself down to prevent more hurt by simply refusing any future opportunity for more hurt to occur. I was well beyond my limit and it took much convincing from my therapist for me to even give CCS a chance to help me.
Still, I asked to be reassigned to another CCS worker, this time knowing that I could not trust what they claim to offer and just keep the things we work on surface-level functioning--like cleaning my oven or going through the pile of mail I hadn't opened in weeks because their potential contents paralyzed me with fear.
I was denied my request and let go from the program as they felt I had burned through 2 workers and thus proven that I am not a good candidate for the program. I still don't agree with this and argued, but after weeks of (a reasonable number of) periodic emails and voicemails, I never got an email or call back. In hindsight, I maybe should have reported to the county what happened, but it's been like a year.
That mostly brings us back to the present. I have been back in FSET since Spring but just focusing on staying afloat with Uber/working on whatever I can handle. I had a whole researched and designed pitch asking them to fund the several hundred dollars it would be for me to become a mobile notary, but they denied my request as they lack the funds. They also denied my request for new boots for the Uber hazards because they felt it was a fashion thing and not a need. Agencies, or honestly anyone with any power over me, not understanding me even with my articulate, crystal-clear explanations isn't surprising to me anymore. And counterintuitively, more explanation (even from different approaches) does not help and just makes me think I'm weird, which somehow is taken as more cause to not grant whatever request it is I am making in the first place.
So I Uber, I argue with doctors and agencies to try to get my needs met, and I have breakdowns despite my efforts to not. I have always had a massive list of more sculptures I want to make. I do want to get to a point where I can make them someday. I've been waiting on disability for an answer for nearly a year and done all I can to bolster my case with getting doctor testimonies, giving my testimony, noting clinic visits so the person assigned to my case can view the findings of them, getting an ADRC contact to guide me (though looking back, she didn't help at all and it was me searching out and discovering everything on my own while all she did was forward what documentation I had to the state for me)... All I can do is try to survive until they say “yes,” but they usually say “no” first (which is why an alarming number of people file bankruptcy and/or die waiting for a disability decision), especially since mental health reasons are the hardest ones to get approved, and my ADRC contact has been using language such as, “This will make it easier for next time,” and I'm not prepared to hear her tell me she thinks we'll have to file another claim and wait another year, so I don't ask 
I feel terrible that I've not been sculpting or posting. I miss engaging the Tumblr community and sharing my art with people who appreciate it (and not tell me it's garbage. Wtf, Grandma). 
The fact that I couldn't actually bring myself to commit suicide and still don't even though the extremely-difficult-to-survive--particularly with multiple debilitating ailments--and high cost I incur daily to myself trying to keep my head above water as long as I can, tells me that there is a life better than this that I want to live. I can't fathom for myself anything other than what is current, and I am putting all my chips into believing that I could be wrong and there's a chance all my striving will eventually meet stable ground to rest upon, where I can return to myself and make art again. I hate to think this wreck is who I really am and want to believe this is just who I am under a stupid-amount of pressure that no human should ever have to endure. A lot of people have been quick to point out all the resources, but I guarantee I've pursued all of them hard and received some help but not nearly enough. It's hard to wrestle with the feelings of not being enough to live or not being worthy of living because it's such a struggle for me to throw enough money at bills/expenses to allow me to live. It shouldn't cost someone all of themselves to try (and imminently fail) to earn the allowance to live.
Things like the ACP and student loan freeze (I owe $80,000+ because college is an overpromising, commercialized thing that is more gamble than guarantee) are ending soon (or maybe have ended and I just haven't opened my mail to know), and I'm deathly afraid. Uber isn't enough and on down-times with them and when my various ailments aren't being debilitating, I work on selling things to try to make enough for the month. Obviously I'm eventually going to run out of things to sell. 
I'm also fearful that my estimated disability check, if I get one, is only going to be $900/month, because I didn't get enough work experience to be allowed more. I genuinely don't know that that's going to be enough, especially since the price of everything like rent is inflating. I don't know how long I can financially sustain my means of survival. But I'm still doing everything I can. It's jarring to go from decorated Valedictorian to…whatever exhausted mess this is. 
My parents stopped asking me months ago how things are going because they know it's never good. They don't have the means to help me as my mom got laid off of work, my dad has dementia and doesn't work, and if I have to live with them again, I would essentially be signing off on my own death certificate because even spending a few hours in that home, with those people, is enough to completely drain me, trigger so much PTSD, grind my mental health down even more with whatever new dynamics and energies they decide to inject in our interactions. I wasn't free to fight the battles I needed to until I moved out into my own private space, and since it is the cheapest option in the entire city and so necessary of a component to my mental health, my therapist identified keeping my apartment as my number one priority. With my mental health, I wouldn't do well at all or be able to get back on my feet if I was homeless.
This turned into a lot more than I intended, but I'm really satisfied that it explains my situation and makes it known that you can do everything right and still lose. The system will cannibalize you if you don't have money to start with and don't have the means to keep it coming. Poverty charges interest and there are no days off, especially if you're disabled. There are no real safetynets and the ones that exist are overwhelmed, underfunded, underpowered, and essentially only serve to make the ones who don't need them feel satisfied (and aren't outraged and pushing for changes) being sold the lie that those who need help have it available to them. Having an inside view of what the experience is, I am apalled at how little systemic support or consideration there is for the disabled, especially since it is the largest minority group that anyone can join at any time.
Some days suck worse than others, like when the weather is so bad that I cannot Uber or when my pain or mental state has been aggravated and I haven't made enough time for self-care so it has decided for me when self-care must be attended to. I wish I could give myself the self-care my mind and body need so I can be healthier, more resilient to setbacks, and feel less pain, but honestly some nights I don't even go to bed because there isn't enough time/I can't afford to not be working or selling things. Society likes to frame self-care as a luxury and only recently (since covid attacked everyone's mental health) did self-care start to be widely accepted as a need. It's just too bad all that rhetoric amounted to is awareness without action. Capitalism still demands and glorifies the nonstop grind, even if it kills us.
Obviously some days are better than others and it feels incredible when I feel a genuine smile spread across my face. I wish it wasn't so foreign of a feeling, but the fact that it is makes it more impactful. I try to give my attention to hope, even if I have no practical basis to believe it exists. 
Receiving this ask did ultimately bring a smile to my face because it means I'm still cared for in a world that kicks me to the ground daily and says I don't deserve care. It is so hard for me to even care about myself a lot of the time, with all the negative messages I've internalized from my dominatingly high ratio of experiences that are rejection or failure in some form. Ultimately, we all just want to be loved. Thank you so much for reminding me that pain isn't all there is for me (it's easy to get sucked into that mindset after years of nearly everything gutting me. I often fail to even notice myself falling into it and being consumed by it). 
I know I don't owe anyone an explanation for my absence and that no one is mad at me or blaming me for it that I would need to provide some sort of justification. But I wanted to communicate with you all because I love you. I genuinely mean that. 
I still think about this from time to time and I still want come back to making and sharing sculptures and just having fun hearing all the things you have to say about them and how delighting, inspiring, or entertaining you find them. I consider the ability to do that and this Tumblr page to be one of my greatest things I've made. I don't care about money and despise that money dictates virtually every aspect of my life in the worst way. Community, creativity, and self-improvement motivated by joy/love rather than profit/fear are of infinitely more value to me. I'm still pursuing that dynamic in the end through all of this.
By no means is anyone obligated to donate to me, but if you can afford to and want to, I'll post my payment platform things below (some may still have my birth name attached). Any amount helps and Lord knows I dove for a penny on the ground last week.
If you can't donate but still want to help, reblogging can help no matter how little reach you feel your blog has, and I also would appreciate words of encouragement or support. I also just want you to know that if you've been reading this far, I really appreciate that you care enough about me to do that.
All of my love,
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Stan 
(They/Them)
PayPal:
@Stanwagner09
Venmo:
@asclw7643
Zelle:
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sodacansculptures · 2 years ago
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It certainly helps with hand cramping. I'm not too sure about arm pain, though, since you still have to hold up a brick the whole time. I can't imagine going back to playing without a hand grip, though. I'd cry.
I built a stylus rig for my Switch. It is attached to the console via a headphone jack piece and connected with one of those twisty pieces from a keychain with a split-ring added on each end. Depending on if I need to use the headphone jack, the rig can either be wholly removed or partially removed by unclipping the clip, which is attached to the stylus through a hole.
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Feel free to send me any improvement ideas!
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sodacansculptures · 2 years ago
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I built a stylus rig for my Switch. It is attached to the console via a headphone jack piece and connected with one of those twisty pieces from a keychain with a split-ring added on each end. Depending on if I need to use the headphone jack, the rig can either be wholly removed or partially removed by unclipping the clip, which is attached to the stylus through a hole.
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Feel free to send me any improvement ideas!
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sodacansculptures · 2 years ago
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Homemade nativity scene
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sodacansculptures · 3 years ago
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Does anyone know where to buy these, or have one(s) in good conditin you'd like to sell to me? I know I'm like 6 years late, and all I'm finding are dead links/out of stock/inactive listings.
If you can offer any help tracking these down, I'd really appreciate it. If you are the first person who can get me a working link from which I can buy them (I am in the U.S.), I will Venmo you US$10. Thank you!
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sodacansculptures · 3 years ago
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I tried my best to color adjust these pics, but my computer monitor and my phone screen are showing drastically different things, so I apologize if Kicks is too dark/saturated. But if he's perfect, you're welcome.
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Welcome, chum! Have a look. No rush, no rush at all.
It’s Kicks…in wooden pixel form!
Made from dyed/stained wooden blocks, in the same arrangement as the Kicks badge from the Nintendo 3DS Badge Arcade. I have since sprayed him with a coat of clear gloss to make him look more finished. Took more hours to complete than I’d like to admit–
He can’t move his paws to shine your shoes, but I hope you like him awright! <^,=,~ (My attempt at a skunk emoticon)
I’m looking to sell this fine specimen of a man, so if you are interested, please shoot me a message here. I’m still figuring how much shipping will cost, but I’m thinking US$30 for Kicks, himself, plus shipping. :)
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sodacansculptures · 3 years ago
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Welcome, chum! Have a look. No rush, no rush at all.
It’s Kicks...in wooden pixel form!
Made from dyed/stained wooden blocks, in the same arrangement as the Kicks badge from the Nintendo 3DS Badge Arcade. I have since sprayed him with a coat of clear gloss to make him look more finished. Took more hours to complete than I’d like to admit--
He can’t move his paws to shine your shoes, but I hope you like him awright! <^,=,~ (My attempt at a skunk emoticon)
I’m looking to sell this fine specimen of a man, so if you are interested, please shoot me a message here. I’m still figuring how much shipping will cost, but I’m thinking US$30 for Kicks, himself, plus shipping. :)
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sodacansculptures · 3 years ago
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Hello, everyone!!
Just wanted to give an update on my life and my absence. It is a bit depressing, so feel free to skip the rest of this post. I am on mobile and do not know how to do a "read more", so I apologize.
The TL;DR version is that I have been struggling with unemployment for over a year (thanks, covid) and have become very discouraged in my efforts, and I am essentially in survival mode while battling depression. I do have a therapist and I know I will ultimately be okay--just not having a particularly good time at the moment.
The full version is that in 2018, finishing grad school became my top priority and was why I had to take a break from sculpting. I graduated in May of 2020 with my Master's, and I had a job lined up with a university, but it got withdrawn because the whole university shut down. As far as I know, the position was never re-offered or re-posted.
The industries for which my degrees qualify me and that I am pursuing were highly affected by budget cuts and project cancelations due to the pandemic, so they have many displaced workers seeking reentry into the field, resulting in unusually high numbers of applicants and competition for people such as myself. (USA Today actually interviewed me for my expertise on this topic.)
Lower-tier jobs pass over me because I am overqualified and they assume I will be pursuing other employment, leaving them with turnover, which is expensive to any agency. Higher-tier jobs are in high demand as they offer better wages and better working conditions, so they have a large crop of candidates from which to pick and elect someone with more experience than myself (and obviously I cannot gain more experience without employment). I am in a sort of impossible situation that has left everyone involved in my employment search with frustration.
Over the past year, I have enlisted the help of an employment training/retention program and multiple staffing agencies, and they have been extremely supportive of me and helped me expand my network. I have sought out much help, and I am endlessly grateful to have support, but unfortunately there is little they can do more than what I have already been doing for myself to gain employment.
I have a stellar resume, an awesome number of favorable and practical references, and I always study the agency and position to which I am applying so I can write an informed cover letter and have relevant talking points during interviews. I put a lot of time and effort into every opportunity, and when I inquire for feedback, employers repeatedly tell me that they admire my resourcefulness and work ethic and think I would be an extremely valuable worker, but another candidate just had a little more experience. It is heartbreaking to know I have done my best and interviewed excellently but ultimately end up back at square one. I honestly wish there was something I was doing wrong so that there was something tangible I could improve to fix my situation.
My effort feels invisible to the outside world and it seems the public assumes I am on a sort of easy vacation. In reality, every day for me is full of uncertainty, and every day, I wish I could be working. I get by utilizing my skills from high school robotics and self-instruction via the internet to repair, restore, and upgrade old electronics, but it is not stable work and not for what I went to school.
Additionally, I have been deemed not to qualify for Unemployment for a nonsensical rationalization. They ask for employment history in order to calculate how much to pay, but for some reason, student jobs do not count as jobs to them. So although they have me in their system as having been employed as a graduate assistant, they both demand to know from my previous employer what that wage was (and the institution would not forward that wage information to Unemployment because it is a student job and irrelevant to Unemployment's calculations), and would not consider that, anyway, in how much to pay me. So essentially, Unemployment could not figure out how much to pay me, so they just decided not to. I have opened appeals over the situation with them twice, and I have been rejected twice and had the case closed with no opportunity to reopen it. It is a huge slap in the face that even the social system put in place to help people such as myself has failed me and turned me away.
I would take a factory job or do some other physical labor since those are hiring, but I have plantar fasciitis and being on my feet for more than an hour or so at a time just is not feasible for me. I was receiving physical therapy for it at one point, but insurance stopped covering it because they decided I should have had enough visits by now to have recovered. I'm also struggling to get my insurance to cover things like treatment for GERD, which makes eating anything at all a nightmare to deal with.
I have been getting by mostly on pity from family and friends. I do not have unnecessary things like wifi, and I have a lot of expenses I had been putting off because I assumed I would have a job by now (such as a vacuum cleaner. Mine is broken). It kills me to ask for money because it's embarrassing for me that I can't provide for myself, and I got into the field of public administration because I want to be a servant to the people and help them have resources and money, not take money from them.
If you don't have a lot of money, please keep it for yourself. I'm not hurting that badly that I would want to put others in a precarious situation. But if you have a little change you'd like to spare for me (and absolutely no pressure. If I receive nothing, I will still be okay), my Venmo and my PayPal are each @asclw7643. Any little bit would help and I'd be greatly appreciative.
Finally, I did finish that project I was posting about last year in my previous post. I want to post a photo of it, but I can't seem to locate where I put it at the moment. It's Kicks from Animal Crossing. I wanted to do a series of wooden block sprites (mainly Pokemon) and I do still want to. I want to come back to soda can sculpting, as well, so I want to let you all know that I'm here, I'm alive, and I'll persist.
Thank you all for your patience. I promise it will be rewarded and I have a lot of ideas for new sculptures. =]
With love,
- Crystal
(or Cris. I go by either.)
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sodacansculptures · 4 years ago
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So uh I've been doing some woodworking. I've spent 5 days on a pixel sprite project and I should be done with it tomorrow. Just thought I'd drop a little teaser here.
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sodacansculptures · 4 years ago
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I want my ashes buried in so many ironic things (see also: Yu-Gi-Oh! tin). Maybe just split up the ashes into the various vessels and whoever seeks them out like pirate treasure and assembles them like Exodia gets 3 wishes or whatever from me.
When I die, I want my ashes sealed inside a soda can. That is my legacy. Put me in a Coke can, and no, Pepsi is not okay.
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sodacansculptures · 5 years ago
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This is my way of announcing that I finished my Master’s Degree in Public Administration (with a 4.0)!
I had to break out a DVD and Microsoft Paint and make this myself.
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sodacansculptures · 5 years ago
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At the advent of the fallout, I returned to my childhood bedroom to scavenge (I was wearing a mask and everything. Felt like I was robbing my own old house). I spotted these two on the shelf, and I thought they looked nice so I snapped a pic. I found the pic on my camera roll today and thought I'd share.
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sodacansculptures · 5 years ago
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Screw it. Froggy Chair.
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