A writing project by KAO including paintings and songs. Part memoir, infused with folklore.
All work is original by Kelsey A Olson.
It Will Pass (2014-2024).
It Will Pass is what I consider my first real work as an artist. The first painting I professionally sold, and I was genuinely proud of. Worked on over the span of 10 years as I came back to the piece I loved and knew I could improve, as life was changing behind me and before my eyes.
This piece is representative of the weight I carried as a 15-16 year old teenager, expressing myself on the original painting, the hands showing communal support without being known to the original hand at the time of painting. It Will Pass, the weight of the world, and it did. With the help of community, surgery and medical intervention, and sheer willpower. 1% better each day at a time.
Progress photo from 2020 restoration of piece.
Introduction to Paradise (2019-2026).
This piece is the entryway to the world of The Bells & Hysterics. The arches represent a threshold one can choose to cross into Paradise. The trees and roots represent life and connection, extending, reaching. Surreal morning light turns to daytime, brightening.
When I started this piece, my original concept was “Jacob’s ladder”, and I intended the piece to feature mostly rays of light and grief.
Instead, I found out so much about my own health along the way, my own genuine colors, and my true support system.
This piece is the Introduction to Paradise. But it’s also how I leave that world I was in for so long. It’s the exit back to present and reality, my home.
Introduction to Paradise (song)
Time signature is 9/8. Think [1,2,3][1,2,3][3,4,5]. Soft, elegant, but disturbed.
What morning is this?
When did you meet me here?
I’m in Paradise,
Everything’s surreal, as if I’d died.
I left my home for the first time.
I left my body again.
Only this time I will stay away,
For God knows how long.
And I’m in Paradise,
Everything’s surreal, as if I’d died.
What would find you peace?
I long for familiarity.
What an oddity it is to speak
Articulately what I mean.
And I’m in Paradise
Blindly revived.
I’m in Paradise,
Everything’s surreal, as if I’d died.
(What morning is this?)
This song was originally written in 2019-2020 while I was in college, writing the original draft of my story.
The morning referenced is June 5th, 2016, the morning of my older brother’s death, the morning I woke up in Paradise- my surreal land of repression and delusion.
“Paradise” is used satirically to show a place so above suffering that it’s addictive, lovely.
While dissociation was nothing new to me by the age of 18, this sort of trauma was.
I went off to my Freshman year of college that August, with the whole, unexpected world ahead of me.
“Blindly revived” was the last line added to the song, when the accompanying painting was finished in 2026. An unexpected feeling of recovery after years of healing.
The Bells (2016-2026).
The Bells (song)
Time signature is mostly in 9/8, dark and bluesy. Think [1,2,3][1,2,3][3,4,5] for the rhythm. The solo after the final “The Bells” goes into a chaotic 4/4 riff before resolving back to the original 9/8 outro. Written in 2019 originally.
Aren’t you so bright, tired one?
Aren’t you always right?
I’m so sick of getting high all day by myself but it’s what occupies my time.
Haven’t you heard the Bells?
They give and they taketh away.
That must be what we’re celebrating,
Oh, no, I’m afraid.
Haven’t you heard?
How bright? Too bright! For a wide-eyed-one!
Were you never even alive before?
I wonder if he saw the same gold in my peripheral, how it shined so cold!
I swore to myself I’d keep under control
But how would be even know.
I wonder if he saw the same
Gold in my peripheral.
Haven’t you heard?
Haven’t you heard?
I swear it wasn’t on purpose (this time)
I swear it wasn’t on purpose (this time)
I swear it wasn’t on purpose (this time)
I swear it wasn’t on purpose (this time)
Haven’t you heard?
Haven’t you heard?
The Bells?
The Bells references a moment in time, a split second before the Hysterics start. This is the moment the trauma begins and Paradise starts.
Years later, I would still hear the Bells. I would still see them out of the corners of my eyes. I would see the gold sparking in the highlights of the world. No one could seem to confirm it’s a hallucination yet.
This was the year I got my first bipolar diagnosis. Incorrect at type II, but vital information to my psyche.
My older brother had been diagnosed with type II bipolar a month before he’d died. I made a promise to him at his funeral that I’d stay alive to the best of my abilities and make him proud. I made a promise then to continue on and be better.
It was hard to come to terms with my own self-destruction. It was even years longer before I could come to terms with my brother’s. I will never blame him, for I knew his mind better than most. He was my best friend, the one I could relate to above all others. He understood me when no one else did.
But mania and denial will only get you so far.
Look! No Hands! (2020).
Painted in 2020, this moment depicts the feeling of dissociation behind the wheel, particularly in control of psychosis and grief. There’s a manic assumption that one will arrive at the destination in safety with no hands on the wheel, a smile on their face, and light in their many eyes.
Oracle (Early Childhood – Ongoing).
Oracle as a concept started around 2016-2017 as “Mirror-box” which can be seen in the inner chamber of the painting near the chairs, reflecting. This was a dimension of safety and security, yet a feeling of entrapment. The majority of the painting was finished in 2018. The water represents a layer separating reality, where memories lie beneath, twisting and turning into unrecognizable patterns. The hands extend from outside, from the real world, begging my consciousness to come out and play, but I am unable at the moment. Whose hands are they? I don’t quite connect to them as my own. There are two chairs, as Oracle waits for his audience to arrive. He is not yet ready to tell his story, but one day he will be.
Ending Credits to Paradise (2026).
Ending Credits to Paradise. 2026. 8 years after the original painting. Oracle takes a bow. His trauma has been changed, represented by the triangle in his chest, recognized by the light shining upon him. I am in control of my mind and body finally- the stage manager of the scene. The hand is mine. It’s sickly and green- imperfect because I am flawed and healing. I have much work to do as I grow each day. The arches on the side are still present as a threshold to the outer world, though they appear simply as walls of the theater. The audience is hidden, but present, watching, captured by the bow. The sun on the stage shows the ultimate recognition that trauma has begun to heal, that we have made it, that we have changed, that we will continue to change for the better.
This would make a great future album cover for my hypothetical album, wouldn’t it?