My Full Story

Creation, to me, is akin to  human nature. It is deeply rooted into me, who I am, and how I live. Ever since my tiny toddler hands learned to grip jumbo crayons, I've been creating. Creating art, writing, music, fake scenarios.. and more. I owe everything for my ability to create. It is my life, and has completely changed my life for the better. 

 

Growing up, I learned very quickly that life will- well.. throw life at you, especially when you're different.. or as I like to put it, unique. My fervent and over-imaginative personality didn't appeal to my peers, and I could never figure out why. My perspective and need for a voice to express it drove others away, and left me with no one to talk to. It left me in silence. I began to despise what gave my personality color, and so I decided to keep myself in the sketching process.. unfinished and colorless. My voice became my enemy. I questioned why my sense of expression was so strong if it was never happily received, and deemed myself the problem. I thought that, if I couldn't do it right, I shouldn't even try.. so I stopped trying, and never gave a second thought to it. I found peace in the silence. 

 

At the beginning of middle school, my mental health tanked drastically and swiftly. Without knowing how to express myself, I locked it all away in fear that needing support was another unwelcomed means of expression, and I had nowhere to turn to. I tried to draw consistently as a means of distraction, but it wasn't speaking to me how I wanted it to. I was unsure of my personality and who I was, and I wasn't at all enticed to find out. Instead, I waited for people to embrace me for my differences. I waited for my opportunity to feel like I had presence. I waited, and waited for a chance to be the strong and colorful person who was so full of complexities and depth and personality, to be the person I had so many visions of and ambitions of being...though that never came. People got used to how reserved and quiet I had become, and never tried to open the shell I had put around myself. There was no opportunity, and the amount of waiting I was doing was pointless.. though it had been so long that when I finally realized that I had to do it myself, I had no idea how. I was terrified of breaking my shell, of being anything but quiet and reserved.. I had so many things to say, so many dreams of being a person that people could connect with on deeper levels, and so many ambitions of standing out and breaking free from the monotony of conformity. My need for expression became an agitated bird in a cage, desperately searching for a way to be set free. 

 

Eventually, that bird broke free. 

 

It was around my sophomore year of Highschool when I finally learned how to channel my emotions, life struggles, and the true complexities that was my being into my creations. It changed the entire course of my life. My voice, once kept behind thick iron bars, finally took flight. The answer was so simple, and so accessible. Creating was my entire life, and now creating changed it for the better.. and changed me for the better. Authenticity and vulnerability was the answer I had been searching for, and I embraced it in its entirety. I welcomed my differences with an open heart, and harnessed the cavernous nature of my soul to utilize my voice in a way I hadn't thought of before. My social life that constantly crumbled around me started to blossom, and the ambitions I had to stand out so much that it inspired others were finally coming to fruition. I started to explore the extracurricular activities I had always wanted to be apart of, and I became staples in many of them. I realized that my personality belonged somewhere, it led people and taught people and created connections with people, all because I led with authenticity and vulnerability; exactly how I was starting to put my voice into my art. I learned to love my color, and how it finished the part of me that I left in the sketching process for so long. I had a way to better explain how complicated my brain was, and gave me an outlet for when life threw itself at me. I had complete control of the volume of my voice, and realizing that set me free. Creativity was my independence and freedom, and and my opportunities to express myself was boundless. This gave my art more soul, more feeling; a sense of humanity. I had figured out how to push the boundary of surface-level 2D illustrations into works representing the parts of me that I didn't even know I had. It improved my skills, and my pieces benefitted. My creations began sparking conversations with people who were like me, who didn't seem to fit in very well, who were "unique" like I was. It was a kickstarter for connection of those most vulnerable to isolation. Though the impact was small [ as I was only a student at a small highschool ], I still had the ability to say that the works I was creating was making some kind of difference at all. It was speaking some capacity of volumes, and reaching out to people to resonate with and talk about. I realized that this is what I wanted, for people to talk about it and connect with it, authentically and vulnerably. That was more than enough for me. 

 

Unfortunately, it also sparked much less positive conversations. My art was often described to me as "intense, morbid, dark, and worrying". I was praised for my innate sense of expressionistic elements, but was constantly told to instead focus on my more positive emotions. I was lectured over and over again to "make use of the ability to put emotion onto a page to spread feelings of hope and happiness". I was told to create "appealing" art if I ever expected to graduate from hobby to career, or even to make the smallest of statements. My work was highly rejected, and I began to feel that ominous past of silence start to creep back up on me. I was left in the dark in comparison to my peers creations, as it was just "too much to really interact with".. and my support system was solely on my shoulders. My art teachers, ironically, never truly understood me, and rarely attempted to connect with my pieces.. even from a technical standpoint. I knew that my art wasn't for everyone, but that discouraged me and my newfound creative explosion started to come to a halt. I was still creating, but less and less. I would go weeks, even months without even opening my sketchbook. I enjoyed creating for fun, and working on my stories, character designs, and art that was "normal," but I grew tired of how dull it all felt. It meant something to me, but without the soul I knew I could put into it, it stopped speaking to me, and I felt disconnected from my inner artist. During this era of poor connection, I saw a post with the words of Cesar A. Cruz, "Art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable", and attached was a few paintings with unsettling themes. That post stuck with me for months, and I took it as a sign. It stuck with me, and that was enough. I knew that my art was speaking to people, even though it was a small minority. It stuck with people, just how art enriched with horrific soul stuck with me. I kept mental notes of the few conversations I had with those that my art had comforted and connected with, and I kept going in my own direction. I argued and defended my work left and right all throughout highschool, trying over and over again to explain that those pieces were very important to my artist. I missed creating so much, and I never wanted to lose that connection again, even if that meant my art was for a small audience and that most would never understand it. Those who needed it understood it, and I understood it. I persevered, even through the constant exposure to doubt, neglect, and critical remarks. I took the negatives to heart, and found a way to compromise. 

 

I decided my art was, in fact, going to spread positive messages in its own way. Every piece I make is with the intention that it will connect others through conversation, and remind those who feel as if their voices are lost that they're not alone. My art is intended to resonate with those who need it the most, and through disturbing imagery, dark themes such as emptiness, anxiety, isolation, distortion, sadness, and more, I wish to tell those who interact with my creations that with nowhere to turn, there will be a tangible personification of hope.. in a twisted way, but still hope, and a reminder that silence is not the solution. You are not alone. There is someone, or something, waiting for your voice to be heard.. so set that bird free; loudly, colorfully, unapologetically.