I wrote this piece in college, in the early winter of 2011 at the age of 21, and adapted it to fit the page limit for inclusion in an anthology book series published the following year.
This is the full length version, raw and unrefined:
Triangles and swirls danced across the fresh sheet of paper as my small fingers, drenched with wet paint, smudged vivid shades of red and blue onto the page. The fluid pigments seeped into the tiny creases and crevices of my young hand like water carving delicate channels in sand. My fingers frolicked across the paper, trailing creamy paint until they dragged dryly along the page, no longer creating wet paths but leaving behind faded tracks. They divorced the sheet for a moment to replenish in cool paint pooled in plastic palettes and quickly revisited the painted page. Layers of yellow and green followed. I looked at my creation in wonder as the corners of my lips curved upwards into a grand smile. I was no longer a little girl shielded within the stable walls of my home as the rain pattered against the roof above me outside. My imagination found space to roam in the vastness of the white page. In the process of creating, I was captured by the kaleidoscope of shapes and colors that danced before my eyes. Spread across the page were the children of my mind — images as abstract as my thoughts and as real as my observations.
Since that stormy day, the sun has risen from the clouds, traveled across the sky, and sunk into the dark abyss thousands of times over. Hundreds of drawings and paintings that stemmed from my hand have been created, lost, and forgotten over the years from childhood to the present. Like the view from a fast-spinning carousel, all my days flow seamlessly one after another and blend into one. And then there are those moments engrained in memory, those pivotal days that advance from the blur and come into crystalline focus. My first drawing experience was one of those.
Sometimes I revisit that memory, and it carries me through a journey of my art experience. I close my eyes, and as if the hands of the clock rotate rapidly in reverse, my years roll back one after another, faster and faster, until suddenly, it stops. Nonexistent are the worries of a future unknown and the reminiscences on a past already lived cluttered in my mind; in their place stands wide-eyed innocence and life focused in the immediate moment. I open my eyes and the world and everything in it seems proportionately bigger. I am in a vibrant preschool classroom with navy blue carpet and cream walls decorated with colorful pictures and diagrams. I am four years old.
The teacher, a gentle woman with dark blonde hair, sparkling blue eyes, and the faintest carvings of lines from years of smiling, places before each of the children a blank piece of paper. I stare at the empty sheet in front of me quizzically; my mind flashed to the illustrations from picture books my parents would read to me, never recalling a blank page. “It is a free drawing,” she says kindly as I look up at her. “You can draw anything you want.”
Beside my hand rested an octagonal prism that tapers down to a cone, ending with a slim slab of rough, textured graphite. Clutching this strange utensil between my palm and fingers, I look down at the blank sheet of paper before me. I could fill this empty space with whatever I wanted and create anything. My mind brought me to my favorite toy: my Bedtime Barbie, which stayed at my side every night when I went to bed. She was the first thing I played with in the daytime, and the last thing I held in my arms as I fell asleep. Soon, I pressed the dark edge of the drawing instrument against the page and the lines from my pencil connected to form Barbie’s gentle face, flowing hair, and soft nightgown. This drawing was soon printed on the cover of the school’s magazine.
My first art competition did not come until years later in fifth grade. The entire elementary school was pulled into the auditorium for an announcement of an art contest. The loud rustle of voices that echoed throughout the room simmered down to whispers and then culminated in silence as a thin woman on the stage held a microphone to her lips and introduced herself as the art teacher. She described with enthusiasm the entries received in prior years and declared that this year’s theme for the contest is: “It would be strange if…” She stressed that it could be anything, and encouraged our imaginations to roam free.
I picked up an application from my teacher, and thought deeply for days on what to create. My classmates already knew me as “the artist.” Often, they would commission me to draw something for them for fifty cents, which seemed like big currency at the time. It meant a trip to the ice cream truck for a Popsicle in the walk home after school. However, this time I wanted to create something different from the roses and swans I usually drew. I wanted it to be something out of the ordinary.
One day, after noticing the seasonal change of trees with the fall of amber colored leaves and the growth of green on branches in the spring as I walked home from school, the idea found me: It would be strange if leaves floated with the rainbow. I dashed home like a jackrabbit thinking of the small bin of art supplies in my closet. Clutched in my hand was an array of small green, gold, and crimson leaves I picked off the ground.
As soon as I arrived home, my face was shining with excitement as I sprawled out all my paints and pencils and began to work. I illustrated an assortment of leaves, and dipping my paintbrush into all colors imaginable, I playfully experimented with various combinations of paint. The colors merged together seamlessly, radiating all the colors of the spectrum. I spread water over it, giving transience to the chromaticity of pigment. And it was as if I was taken back to that stormy day years ago when I was finger painting, but instead of being shielded from water, the rain fell onto the page and infused the painting with life.
At one point, the water pooled in the middle of the page and formed a hole in the sheet as I ran my brush over it, but I pasted the small, colorful leaves all over the painting, disguising the puncture. Then I spread a thick layer of transparent glue over the entire sheet to smooth out the page and added glitter. I smiled to myself, elated with the result. I never told anyone about it, because I wanted it to be a secret. I had never been so experimental before.
The result was a watercolor piece of a rainbow and leaves stirring in the wind. It glistened in the sun, catching rays of sunlight throughout its variation of colors. Beaming with joy, I submitted my artwork to school for the competition the next day without knowledge of my friends or family. They would see it eventually, but for now, it was all mine, and not anything that could be bought or sold.
At last, after several weeks, the artwork was hung on display outside the auditorium with ribbons next the ones that placed. Feeling the shallowness of my breath as I ran to the display case, my excitement fizzled into disappointment when I discovered that I only won third place at my elementary school. Suddenly, my mixed media piece did not feel special anymore.
The glitter seemed dull and the colors looked less vibrant. The lively leaves that were once distinctive looked ordinary, and all at once, my creative idea was anything but creative. It embarrassed me. I could not believe that I submitted such a work that reflected such little artistic sensibilities, much less created it. The little voice in my head offered comfort by saying that at least no one I knew saw it, and thus, I would not have to explain my failure to anyone. Moreover, I can simply pretend it did not exist. It could stay a secret forever, but more a regret that I would never bring up.
As the days passed on, all recollections of that artwork were buried in the back of my mind. I stopped creating art in my spare time and simply focused on school. I did not want to revisit the painful memory, because it only served as a reminder of failure in what I thought was one of my greatest strengths. Like my box of art supplies, I kept it stored in darkness — hidden away from sight because I could not bear to face disappointment in my own insufficient abilities.
Several weeks later in class, my teacher handed me an envelope with my name on it, smiling. I looked around the classroom and realized that no one else received one. All of my classmates were focused on their reading assignment. Curiosity and fear struck me as I silently tore the envelope open. To my surprise, inside was a formal letter declaring that my piece was chosen out of the entire school to be featured in a bigger competition for the entire school district. I eagerly ran home that day like a child to presents under a tree on Christmas morning and showed my parents the letter, asking them if they could bring me to the formal award ceremony the following week.
Unfortunately, my mother and I arrived to the ceremony late that day. As we tiptoed our way through the entrance, the smiling lady at the podium was describing a student art piece to the audience. She admired it as evidence of the creativity of young minds. Suddenly, it struck me — the piece she portrayed on stage sounded like the work I desperately tried to discard from my thoughts weeks ago.
And then I heard it: “It would be strange if leaves floated with the rainbow.” At that moment, she announced my name to crowd and asked me to come to the stage. I nervously walked across the room, twisting the fabric of my cardigan with my sweaty palms. As I stepped next to her on the stage and looked at the sea of smiling people and my astonished mother in the crowd, she announced that I was the first prize winner of the art contest for the entire school district.
My voice retracted deep into my throat, and my eyes glistened with glee. Strangers came up to me to congratulate me and speak to my mother about my budding talent. My mother looked at me in pleasant surprise, because she was unaware that I even participated in a art contest much less produced anything but rows of straight A’s on my report card. I never saw her so proud of me before. She spoke to my father and it was then that my parents realized my potential for art and enrolled me in art classes.
For me, growing up was not just the physical change from adolescence to maturity; it was also the growth of thought, artistry, and technical skill. My abilities as an artist extended as I explored and gained knowledge of a broad spectrum of art: photography, ceramics, landscape painting, watercolor, computer graphics, fashion design, jewelry making, and figure drawing and painting. As I learned more about the world of visual arts, I found myself looking at the world we inhabit in different ways.
The substances formed by nature or crafted by the human hand become more than just their purposes and more than just the backdrop or the objects of everyday life. I began to appreciate a beautiful nature scene in all its complexities, and came to realize the extraordinary within the ordinary — the intricate contours of the hand, the complex shadows under a tree. I learned to harness the uncertainty of the blank pages to stimulate vital creative energy. After all, art itself is a realm of self-discovery. My self-image and understanding of the world that formed long ago is constantly changing as I find new aspects of my surroundings and myself through art. Art allowed me to express my emotions and ideas, and as well as see beyond the walls that surround me. Through visual arts, I have also learned the value of commitment and striving for excellence.
I still carry that passion and wonder I have for art when I was a young child. It thrives in me and compels me to create. Art gives me the ability to capture a moment in time, to show the world through my eyes without speaking a word. With the creation of images that come from using my bare hands, art is a communicative tool — a passageway — for my imagination to be exposed and seen in reality.
And now as my past speeds up and catches up to me, the gears of clockwork turning the hands of time forward, my memories overlap, one after another, propelling the series of events in my life to the present. The years of former experiences blend together, and I stand at the center where my past meets my present and my future begins.
