Why I Became An Artist
I became an artist slowly.
As a child, I drempt as full and wide as any other, and the dream was simple then: I wanted to be an artist. I drew everyday and practiced with as much passion and pure intent as any other child; And it was as I grew older, that I grew to become more disinterested in my dream.
I don’t know if you’ve felt that.
I don’t know if you’ve ever lost a dream or not, but to live without one is a terrible thing. No matter what new drawing or painting I created, no matter the recognition or compliments I received, I felt a divide in who I was. And I no longer loved what I loved.
In college, I chose to study Biology – And I was excellent at it. And I liked it very much. Yet, whenever anybody asked me what I wanted to do after college, I didn’t ever have an answer. All I knew was that I needed to love what I was going to do.
And I was never going to settle in life: I made that resolve to myself.
My four years passed all too quickly and I ended up taking many, many different classes – And even though I learned everything I was taught to learn, on the side, I was gradually learning something else – And it came to become the most important thing I learned in college.
It may not blow you away, but to me, it did. I learned about me: a me with others. Me in connection to others. And I’m not talking about some trivial, on-the-surface connections. A real connection. A connection that touches us to one another in a more deep, sincere, heart-felt way. And I learned that from my peers and professors: I listened to them worry and cry and speak with joy and passion, and watched us all learn side-by-side. I saw the flux of learning and teaching that held no absolute direction.
This became so important because I had grown up so blindly in its absence.. It was an impossibility for me to form this sort of relationship with others because for much of my life, I was alone, struggling with my Social Anxiety. Yet, as I grew to slowly overcome that part of me, this part of myself came to be born within me.
That was what I learned.
I found my love for philosophy. I found my love for poetry. I found my love for writing my feelings out instead of empty words.
And so in college, I learned to relearn my entire education.
I became an artist simply by redefining what an artist was to me. In doing so, I rediscovered my dream, realizing that it was true to being me. I began seeing people as art: And people starting becoming so, so beautiful (And not so scary). And it all began to flow together. And the new definition of art grew.
It took me years to sort all this out inside me; Yet, becoming an abstract artist, it came to me so naturally, in almost a split-moment sort-of-way. I knew it was what I should do…and after I learned my process, I came to understand how alike abstract painting was to writing poetry… Everything began to fit together, yet the ideas come to me so suddenly… Intuitively. I rarely ever plan anything. I never planned for it to turn out this way. I never plan my writing and my paintings. Yet, none of this happened by luck nor chance. It was through the little things that kept building up to something big in the end.
I am an artist because I want to relay to others my true self. It’s a simple reason, but the journey to realizing that didn’t come so easily to me. It would have been so much more easier to do anything else.
But then maybe, I wouldn’t have been able to be an artist.
And I don’t know if I could have been happy living like that.
Hope you enjoyed this blog post everyone!
I’d love to hear down below in the comments how you came to become who you are today. I’d love to hear other inspiring tales ♥
Also, if you have any other questions about me, ask down below! I might just write a blog post about it in the future!
Thank you guys for the read. xo
Stay inspired.
Thank you Shihori. ??
I am moving through to the golden years of my life and find myself at a new crossroads. You seem to have encapsulated a lot of how I fee. Reading your words makes things clearer for me to move happily into my creativity. I wish you much happiness.