But while, I’ve always loved art and the idea of being an artist, somewhere along the early school grade era of 3rd-6th grade the flame that once burned inside of me to become an artist darkened.
I don’t know if my younger self came up with the conclusion that becoming an artist just wasn’t realistic, or if someone told me that I should think of something else to be just in case that didn't work out.
Either way, it discouraged me from really pursuing art and instead, I set out to be a pediatric psychologist. I knew I wanted to help people, I love kids, it seemed feasible.
Art was never really taught to me.. in grade school, I took the basic art classes that everyone takes, in middle school I took an art class one year, high school came and I didn’t take art again until senior year and even then it was an “independent study” that had a whopping 5 students in the class.
So anything I learned about art I just picked up the basics from any class that encouraged me in it and everything else was learned outside the classroom on my own.
I grew up an only child so art worked perfectly for me as far as entertaining myself. I didn’t want toys I wanted the artist's wooden briefcase with cheap markers, paints, and pencils all so beautifully organized in color order.
Truly aesthetically pleasing for me, to the point I almost didn’t even want to take any of it out. Of course I did though otherwise we wouldn’t be here today.
I found after my first year of college, seemingly nothing was making me happy. Not my job, not my major, not my career path I was aiming for, nothing,
For about 3-4 years, I became increasingly depressed, I was not sure as to why but I just felt like I couldn’t figure out my why and what is my purpose.
In late 2019, right before COVID, I was seriously depressed and suicidal. One night I was at the lowest point in my life and I’m not sure what compelled me to do this but it honestly saved my life.
I had a small cheap canvas and some watery low-quality paints I’m not sure even came from, but I sat for hours with my phone on airplane mode and painted a picture of SpongeBob.