I have said before I am many things, one of them being an artist.
I have made this claim on the fact I have created things, drawings, some paintings, even a terrible sculpture or two over the years. In fact, my first memories of drawing and finding a love of creating goes all the way back to when I was six years old.
The problem up until now has been how I have approached art. The how and why I create. You see I have long looked at what I could or could not do based on what I could afford. On what I wanted and not what I had at hand… it was a process of what I could do if I only had this, that, or some other thing. I never really asked myself “what I can I do with this, that, or some other thing.” I never looked at the world and saw possibility, only limitations.
I now can begin to understand the saying, “if you look only for what you want, you will never find what you need.”
I am going to share some pieces I created a few years ago. Sadly, neither I nor time have been very kind to them. As I said, I simply couldn’t see what was right before my eyes, blinded as I have been.
Each of these was done on a piece of scrap paper, backing board actually, which I retrieved from the trash.
What I’m not very proud of is the fact I didn’t see them as “real” art. I thought of them as doodles, play things, nothing serious.
You see, real art was created on proper materials, using the proper tools. Not like these, on scraps and drawn with cheap mechanical pencils bought at Wal-Mart.
I have created other pieces using Sharpie markers or Bic pens. These too I thought of as pointless, just scribbling because I couldn’t see them for what they were.
Art.
My art. Created from imagination with my hand.
Each of them are a little part of me and I just threw them away.
For a long time I have limited myself. My creativity, my imagination… my pain and pleasure. I didn’t see what was there because I was blinded by what I thought wasn’t there.
The funny thing is I have seen “found” art created by others and thought they were wonderful. I have seen paintings made from fruit juice and pretty much anything which can stain a canvas or piece of paper. I have seen soft art dolls made from scraps, and many other wonderful works, yet I thought they were things done by others. Not me.
Not me…
Why?
Why not?
What was it about me which so restricted my creativity?
The answer I’m sure is simple to see…
It was me.
I tell you all of this because placing limits on myself isn’t just about art. It’s about life. It’s about every day you wake up and what you think of as being possible. How can you hope to do anything, for yourself, for others, when you only see what you cannot do?
Or what you think you cannot do.
When you look around and see trash where another might find treasure?
Life, like art, is what we make it. Not what is handed to us. It is made of the wonderful and the terrible. The beautiful and the ugly.
Of trash and treasure.
Each of us needs to learn to become artists. Maybe in paint or pencil, maybe in words or actions.
An artist is someone who can find the wondrous in the ordinary…
Learn to be an artist.
Kira Moore's Closet 