Rachel again

So once again, I attempt to gather together all the things that have made up my life and my art recently.
The first thing to come to mind is, unfortunately, perspective and my seeming inability to grasp it. It's really weird; every time the individual concepts are explained to me, they make so much sense that it's almost boring to hear them recounted again. I know, also, that when I am not so utterly bound by the necessity to make precise measurements, I manage to create a similar effect to true perspective well enough. I really don't understand how or why, by my instinctive sense of a space, the volume the space takes up as a conception inside the psuedo-space my mind creates, does or cannot merge with the measured accuracy we are being taught. Perhaps that is simply because the two have nothing to do with each other, and maybe i should forget my intuition while plotting perspective. But it's just really hard for me to do that; like I'm groping in the dark, and maybe I'll find something by bumping into it, but to find something else I have to let go, and it's as though I've made no progress at all. (Wow, I really don't think I am making any sense). But the thing is, even though everyone says it's really easy to do things when you're using only one standard of measure, I find it really hard. You also must remember what that measure equals on your paper (yes, this can be marked, but I often change my mind and that confuses things); you must remember the distance you observed as being 2/3 of something else from a third thing; you have to understand how this situation is mirrored on the paper. So many little pieces to grasp at once proves impossible for me, and something always slips between my fingers. And honestly, I don't fully understand at an emotional level why I have to force myself to bend opposite of my usual direction. Intellectually, yes, I get that I really could use this "tool," as Reagan and Jana and Zeuler keep referring to it. But I just can't fel that the same way i can feel shape, light, color, space. I don't really think perspective is any more or less true than any other way of visual depiction, and it just feel wrong in some way I can't explain, like when your hair has been up too long and taking it down kind of hurts. Which sort of supports my doubts about all these complaints I have, because it seems to imply this is all so hard just because it's not what I'm used to.
WOW, that was really long. Sorry if you just read it all, but I feel it was a good idea to try and communicate it, even though I only had partial success.
So obviously this has kind of been getting me down, and I've been really lacking in the self-confidence department of late. I was pretty happy with my Italian before, but now I feel it's weak at best. I feel pretty pathetic for continuing to get lost so often, too. I miss my sister a lot (we're best friends), and I miss using color, since it's where I feel most capable of communicating, and I feel really unsteady with no large project to sink my teeth into. I can't just fall into working on something because every other moment, whatever I'm working on is done. I know it's all in my head, and thinking to much only confuses stuff up there even more, so I've been trying to make my silly doubts go away. We'll see how it goes.
Anyways, since I didn't have a chance to upload my pictures from the Bologna art fair before, I'm linking to them now. I made some comments on the actual pictures about why I think each work is so amazing.
I made a mask for carnavale using some National Geographic magazines, which was really fun.
In themsequence, I've been feeling marginally more at ease, because making visual associations, for example, is something that flows naturally for me. I've been gathering everywhere; I picked a branch off an olive tree the other day (those trees are so odd and cool) and I've been collecting other such odds and ends.
Again, several other pictures up at my account on flickr; take a look-see if you wish.
Until next week, when I shall hopefully feel a little less buffeted by the waves. Arrivederci :)