Thursday, March 29, 2012

As I continue to create my line I am getting more and more excited and feel like I am really finding who I am and what I can create to showcase that.
Today I was thinking about what it means to be an artist/designer. So many people want their kids to be doctors or lawyers... engineers... professions that make you money. A lot of parents, who are not artists, never want to hear the words, "mom, dad... I want to go to art school."
SCREECH! Freak out! ART school!? Great, my kids going to be a broke hippie for life! Weird art shows I don't understand... weird peers... ahhhhh! Nightmares!
Not mine. My parents are not hippies. They are not broke. They are successful, hard working people who have supported both me and my sister in not only paying for our education, but allowing us to do what we chose to do, with their hard earned money, with hardly any question... For that I am eternally grateful.
For a long time, though I did very well in college, I had so much regret. I held it inside and punished myself for it everyday. I studied industrial design, but I settled for it. I didn't love it. I loved design, but not this process of it. I was lost. I graduated not knowing what the hell to do with myself and so sad about it.
Things have changed...and will continue to. Now, I live my life telling myself, "my failure, my power." Because I really did feel like I failed myself, I felt like I failed my family... everyone. It was this horrible feeling of failure that pushed me to take a look around, to evaluate myself and my abilities, my passions, fears, wants, needs, my life. Poetry, DIY projects, metalsmithing, hammers, tools, paint, resin... making something from nothing: ART.
Art saved my life. Art made me whole. Art keeps me positive and thriving. My parents gave me this ability. It is something they would never dream of taking away. People who have parents who are artists always want their children to have art. Today I realized why that is. Art is happiness. Artists are happy people... they know themselves and they have full hearts because they are so often left to listen to them. They do what they truly want to do and being themselves is what people want from them. How many people can admit to having a job like that? My parents actually get upset whenever I consider leaving art for money...even though I am sure that they know that I can't, and really never would. It just isn't a part of my story... but with enough attention, my art is now slowly becoming my money (that's what they have always known about me that I didn't; my value and strength)... and whether that money is enough or not really doesn't seem to matter anymore... every dollar made is a true to myself dollar, a dollar made from the drive to be me.

Thank you Mom and Dad. You have given me everything I have ever needed for a happy and successful life.




1 comment:

  1. Fabulous. I wish I had the same courage but I tried that for 3 months and freaked out! I work my stuff around my job :o( But that's ok. So glad you feel happy and satisfied.

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