Uncovering the Artist Within Through Time

What comes to your mind when thinking about the words paintings, oils, acrylics, cubism, and fame? Yes, it should be Art. For many years Art has evolved by itself with great recognition among nations through different artists’ techniques. It is seen as another way of communication. In fact, it is another language that does not necessarily require grammar and/or words. It talks by itself. For me, shaping the ability to create art has taken me time, yet enough to acquire techniques throughout my life. As the years passed by, year after year, my life created time frames in each of my life stages, the unconscious artist was collecting tools to strengthen the capability to later on, create Art.

All my experiences, from childhood to late adolescence, joined together in one experience. They all are linked, like brothers to sisters. Yet, art had to wait until I had passed from being a child to becoming a man. Ever since I have had consciousness of my own acts, my life has not been so easy. It has been more of ups and downs. I can not deny I had a wonderful childhood. Everyone in my family took care of me. I had everything any kid would ever wish for; toys, love from parents and siblings, clothes, and best of all a well-united family. Art was not only there, but it was waiting silent, sleeping, for me to unveil.

 I started going to school at the age of four. It was in kindergarten when my brain started to develop more and more learning skills, from drawing a simple flower to spelling my full name. As the years went by, I was becoming more aware of that the world was not a flat surface as I first thought it was. I learned that we were surrounded not only by numbers and symbols but also by other outer space living forms, such as planets and moons. Also, I saw that there was something beyond the blue sky when I happened to look directly to a sun eclipse. I knew there was life outside the Earth’s atmosphere. It was wonderful seeing such an amazing phenomena going on.

The real life was getting closer to me as I entered high school. It was a big accomplishment to get into a secondary education which not too many people get into when it all happened to be in Mexico.

I felt so proud of myself.

I did not think that I would worry about my future or have to work because I was getting help from my parents. But then, I realized that if I wanted something that I could certainly call mine, I would have to work hard in order to get it. Moreover, I had to start looking out for myself. It was not until I entered college when I felt not longer being the family baby. I was a grown-up kid by then, but I was only 15. Once I got into college back in Mexico, one month had passed by when my family left to the U.S.

I was there, in Mexico living alone. There was no one there to look out for me but me. I had to live three years alone, by myself. I thanked God now for all that time I lived in the deepness of my sorrows, and the darkness of my fears. If I had not been alone all those years, I would not have been able to run for cover from the sandstorm my loneliness left me with. 

During that time, I had to look forward for other kind of love: friends' love. They were my foster family, my second family. They reminded me that trust, loyalty, courage, brotherhood, commitment, along other virtues, were yet to be some of my greatest fortresses that lead me to build a path to successful achievement. All these good characteristics led me to picture my emotions into drawings full of value.

            After being consumed by a hungry-like bonfire of loneliness, I started to mold my feelings on white, colorless, blank papers. With brush in hand, few empty watercolor paint bottles, and a couple of hours later, there it was, a clear reflection of my moods converted in a non-sense drawing covered with dozens of colors. There was a painting which later on, helped me to uncover the artist within that had not yet been awakened.

Two years later, and after I stopped painting due to an extreme emotional fatigue, I faced myself to a new country, a multicultural nation where diversity was the main spine of this country; the United States of America. I thought I would utterly need to fit in this society in order to get along with everybody. I thought I did, but then I looked back and I turned out to realize that such thing was not necessary to do because language and customs were not the main focus of being just another "American citizen." I did, indeed fit in this so demanding society by creating my own language in a canvas, a single painting that does not require an official language in order to be read or understood, an idiom that everyone could speak and understand.

I did not feel like I betrayed my dearly loved country when I flew to the U.S.  I felt the opposite, as if a big part of Mexico traveled with me in this long journey, and helped me to conquer the beauty of the visual arts in this land. Mexico has sent another privileged son to be appreciated by its neighbor country and to be admired by the rest of the World.

Experience through the years, is the one and only tool we need to reach the top of the world especially if we pay attention to our capabilities at an early age. It helps to develop skills, awareness, strength, and other capabilities people have not yet found within themselves. Everybody should shape their endowments and take advantage of them. Though it takes time for such a thing to be discovered it is worth the effort. If it had not been for all I have been throughout my life, it would not be possible for me to awake the artist within.