It’s Up to Us to Play Big
I remember being in my final year of high school and applying to university programs. I had zero ideas on what I wanted to do with my life professionally (arguably still the case), all I knew was that I loved to make stuff. I chose to focus on visual arts programs because they just felt like the best fit. Or, the best starting off point, at the very least. And one night, while I was sitting on the floor, hovering over some art project that was probably due the next day, my mom leaned over to have a look. I was waiting for her to compliment my work. I don’t know if this is something I hoped for or expected–I can’t remember, and honestly, the truth is that it was probably both. But instead, she asked, “But what are you going to do with an art degree, anyway? How are you going to make any money?”
Looking back at this now, as an adult, I understand where her question was coming from. This level of practicality, this desire for stability for her daughter, it was a mindset ingrained in her and in all the generations before her. Get a job, make ends meet, live a stable life. This was the way. I get it, now. I do.
But back then… Back at that tender age of 17, the words fissured their way deep into my heart, widening as they went until my heart eventually divided. What I heard was, you’re not good enough. What I heard was, you’ll never succeed. What I heard was, get real. What I heard was this: Art is nothing more than a nice little hobby, but art and money do not intersect. My mind took the stubborn path. “I’ll show her,” it said. But my heart didn’t believe my own conviction. A dichotomy was formed between my mind and heart, making stuff on the one side, money-making jobs on the other. I developed a core belief that they would never intersect.
I was reminded of this recently because I’m reading The 5am Club by Robin Sharma. It took me a long time to come around to reading this book. I have been getting up at 5am for years as a part of my “carving out some me-time” routine, I didn’t think the book was necessary. Anyway, long story short, it’s not at all as I assumed it to be (assumptions being what they are…). One of the characters in the book is an artist, and the highlighted text in the images all reflect this same story of being born with something inside of us, and how that something gets worked out of us along the journey of growing up (usually by people who mean well). And then it becomes the work of the individual to bring that something back in. Or not. It’s a choice, after all. But on one side of that choice there is stress and displacement, and on the other side, there is a feeling of comfort, and glimmers of joy. On one side, imprisonment, on the other, freedom.
I do wish that 17 year old me understood that my art didn’t need to be perfect, and that it was enough just to like making stuff. I wish she never allowed inspiration to be clouded over by self-judgment. I wish she knew that making stuff never had to be a job, or a hobby. That it could just exist in my life as an element of joy. But I also see that it was necessary for her to be there, in order to get to here. That this, also, was a part of the process of creation. It took time for me to understand that the only person I ever needed to “show” my worth as a creator to was myself.
And it took all this time to admit that my mother’s words were never the issue. And all this time to admit that I had been the creator of my own pain. It took all this time to step out of a victim state long enough to acknowledge my own role in creating this divide. And in acknowledging this, I heal another wound. I peel back another layer. I am closer to whole.
-mtg
