The spark for the celestial collection

 I began drawing pet portraits about 14 years ago. I was 23 years old and just needed a cheap birthday present. I kept this as a “side hustle”, doing maybe five or six drawings a year for mostly trade. This very quickly began an emotional roller coaster I did not get off of until recently. In hindsight, I was experiencing textbook fear of success. Every drawing I did sparked another request, and every request sparked a tiny part of me that would tell itself, “You could do this, this could be your career”. One could call it trauma, or mental health issues, or self-esteem issues, but whatever the cause, the effect was a louder part of myself saying, “but that couldn’t be you. You’re not one of the lucky ones, you work hard in life and you’ll find a way to conform.”

          And for a decade I went on like this. Failing at job after job, each time telling myself a different challenge, or a different setting is all I needed. I tried bartending and serving, and back of the house, then switched to mortgage loan processing, then switched to nursing. Each time going through the same process. I’d love learning how things are done and then I would learn and for a year or two (or one time even 3) I would excel. I would have a good attitude and be happy to be there. And then I would keep being there, day in and day out of the same tasks, in the same setting, with the same people. I would make it until I faced a meaningless rule and inevitably lead to the day, I’d look in the mirror (tears welling) and say, “This is not what life is meant to be”.

         For me, that is! I envy the people in my life who see stability where I see control and find pride in balancing their lives. This envy and my inability to achieve pretty much anything, through the great mystery that is the human brain, the fault of this was placed on my art. Like a devil on my shoulder, taunting my dream life that I didn’t deserve, Had I not been given a glimpse of freedom, I would be able to settle into a role.

         Maybe I was scared to really ever try with art because what if I failed at that too? Then what hope would I have? But what good is hope on its own? Just the angel on the other shoulder sitting quietly while I fought out the devil.

          I had to stop the cycle. For a year i sat and meditated. I was not a monk, I hung around my life, I went places and did things, but every day was dedicated to meditating a little bit longer. During this time, I stopped guessing what I was supposed to be doing. I stopped listening to what other people thought I should do. And I definitely stopped listening to what society says I should be doing. Instead I just learned to listen. The more that I listened the more that I saw. Visions of creatures and galaxies, floods of emotion and moments of complete stillness. I began to see my failures as reassurances instead. I didn’t feel like I should be there because I was never meant to be.

          The first time I sat back to draw was only a few months ago and I have produced more works than my entire career. I think it is because I had never done a portrait for myself before, I had always been in the goal of impressing someone with it. This time was just going to be to see what I would want. I wanted to get some of my visions out of my head and much like before, one led to another and another before I had a whole collection of my ideas and visions.

The feeling of creating the first piece of the collection when it was still new and i wasn’t sure where it would go, was a pride and accomplishment I had never allowed myself to fully feel before.