Day 152: Ready, Set, Create

Since graduating The Academy of Art University in 2011, I had all but given up on a career that I had dreamed of since my younger days of creating art and getting paid for it.  I had excelled in all art forms - music, theatre and visual art.  Even after graduating with distinction from The Academy of Art University from the Fine Arts department, I hadn’t landed gallery representation or been noticed by that one person that would make me famous.  

At this time, rent in San Francisco, CA was starting to skyrocket.  I was working three jobs to pay for my room/residence and my studio at Art Explosion Studios.  I was a barista in the financial district, a bartender/server in the mission and an artist.  The ladder was becoming less affordable regardless of my resourcefulness.  I did the routine for a year.  I was exhausted, broke and, honestly, hungry.  

With that said, my artist career was going to look different moving back to the Midwest.  In St Joseph, MO there was no resembalance of what I knew of as an art community.  In San Francisco, art was like yoga.  You had drawing workshops, gallery openings and even classes on marketing yourself as an artist any given time or day.  I packed up my belongs, loaded all my unsold artwork in trailer and I made the best of it that I could.  I began Marketing for a family business and emerged myself in the community I loved and missed so much.  I started to forget - “I am an artist.”

I created less.  I went into depression.  I started taking antidepressants and seeing a counselor.  I look in retrospect and maybe I could have been an artist in that environment.  The more I am honest with myself, it becomes obvious that because where I was didn’t meet my expectations, I gave up.  Environment is essential as an artist.  I should have left.  And, that’s exactly what I did.   

Now, fast forward to the present, I am living in one of the largest cities in the world, Mumbai, India.  There is literally creativity everywhere.  There is art in every way of life here.  I have started creating again.  I have started living again!  I have an iPhone11+, an Instagram account, Facebook Pages, a Twitter, a Redbubble Store, a Pinterest wall, a LinkedIn account, a yoga teachers certificate, a Squarespace website and a blog.  I am ready now, right?  

While, at the time, I tried to blame people, money and time, I had no one to blame but myself for my lack of inspiration and creation.  In that truth, there is freedom.  In that statement, there is creation and possibility.  In my journey, I’m learning all the time that my expectation caused me to make choices that actually took my dreams away from myself.  I was and am the holder of that key.  So, ready, set, create. 

Looking Forward to Home

As the anxiety starts to settle in about returning home, I am reminded of the bubble that I contained myself in.  While in India, I have yoga classes with meditation, amazing food choices and walking the line of being completely anonymous and infamous at the same time.  I already miss India and I haven't even left yet.  

My element is in chaos.  My experience is going for days without seeing someone I know personally and keeping to myself in my world of creation.  When I think about going home, I get a general sense of feeling hindered and "too much."  I'm too much for a lot of people, I have learned, because I make them face a part of themselves that is uncomfortable.  I stretch the limits of what is possible.  This is a quality I now embrace.

My own life story stretches the limits of what is possible.  How did a guy from St. Joseph, MO make it to California, graduate from one of the top private art schools in the United States, move back to Missouri and, then, move halfway across the world to India?  It blows my mind every single day.  I have to wonder if I made all these things happen.  I did say that I would be back when I set foot in San Francisco back in 2000 for an overnight photoshoot.  I, also, said one day that I would make it to India.  My day has come.

I have to wonder if this goes for negative things in our life too.  If I think that my trip home will be full of drama and discouragement, will I make it that way?   I have come too far to know that my self worth is too much to ignore.  I have learned the power of positive thinking not only of myself but of others.  This is true on all fronts.

Regardless of what comes my way while visiting the U.S., I vow that I am just going to enjoy the ride.  Most of all, I have a very select few that I am very excited to see and hug.  I get to live and work in New York City for a week, teach a 2-day yoga workshop, be a special speaker at Missouri Western State University, sell my photo prints and facilitate a class to keep young drivers safe on the road.  That translates to getting to help people, my favorite thing to do in the entire world. 

From the famous words of Jewel in keeping to my musical references - "I'm sensitive and I'd like to stay that way."  After all, it's not everyday you get to say, "Hey, I'm only in the states for a month."