Peace fellow artists and art lovers,
My interest in art has not always been genuine. I would typically copy and forge work from the person I loved the most, my father. He always had his face in a book or glued to a canvas. When my dad was painting, I was watching him, mimicking his strokes. Although failing miserably, might I add. My dad took notice of me and decided to give me some inspiration of my own. Every Saturday, he would take me and my siblings to the art museum. That’s when I found out that I couldn’t draw. At least not how I wanted... not like him. I cried my little heart out. My one inspiration saw me for what I really was. A sham! If I wasn’t forging or re-creating his work then I was just another being scribbling on paper. I felt like I had no self identification. No artistic identity. My dad saw that I was feeling less than and told me to wipe my tears away. He said to me, “What you have created is unique. No one in the world could have done that.” That’s when I knew that I wanted to encourage and inspire others the way that my father had inspired me.
I used to wonder how many people shared mutual feelings with me when it was concerning my father... I guess I got my answer at his funeral in 2013. It was overpacked with the broken hearts of many whom he had greatly impacted. I felt obligated to put on a strong face, hold back my tears, and wear a mask. It wasn't until applying for the art academy that I realized how I still wore that mask of fear. The mask caused me to fill my life with empty relationships. I struggled keeping friendships due to having no self identity. The only friends that I made were the papers that filled the spaces between my notebook covers and anything that released ink. Art was there, she was there for me in ways that no human was or could have been.
My love for art has not always been sincere. I often used her body as a canvas to exhibit the anger I was trying so hard to conceal. I was holding onto the memory of my father, it became detrimental to the mind. I didn’t want to forget him. Art offered a solution: express yourself in a way that he would have, and there was only one way that I saw fit. I pulled out a plain white paper and I wrote down every word that came to mind, and for every expression that was written I drew something that reminded me of that term. The piece was none other than thoughtful but it was sloppy. I crumbled it up, and that’s when I heard it right before I discarded the piece, “unique” fluttered past my ears. You might think that that was a flashback of my dad‘s words of encouragement, and I wouldn’t be opposed to that. However I knew better, the voice that whispered to me was none other than art herself, she made me feel safe, I wanted to try again and I did. It felt good to know that art was listening to me and that art would speak to me when most needed.
After all these years I realized that my interest and love for art has always been genuine and sincere, my interest sprung because I saw a loved one dedicate his heart to it, and my love for art kept me connected to my dad when most needed. I want everything I do to involve art, art on all platforms.
Peace