Why do you Write/Paint?

Art and writing are seen as creative and sensitive pursuits, which I understood

That's why I felt like I never really belonged even in these most open and varying of niches

I'm not sensitive, or creative, not in the way people expect

What I am is a liar, a craftsman of surplus and arbitrary material

This isn't like other artists' and writers' feelings of inadequacy, a case of imposter syndrome

It's true, and it's been like that since I started writing


Take my letter that you will never read, no matter how proud I was of it

My sketchbook, that you will inevitably open, to find the one sketch I did that made me ashamed not because of lack of technique, but because of where it came from


Houses I tried to build, to shelter, to impress

They were meant to be easy to understand, without questions

They were supposed to be beautiful


The metaphors that I tried to weave, because I wanted to be like other writers, I wanted to make people feel things

Not this straightforward, obvious prose, simultaneously too revealing and flimsy in its sincerity

I wanted to be impressive in my stories, to be renowned so that people could ask me how I'd done it, where I came from

I wanted to make people cry, shout, I wanted to make something that changed the tide

But mostly, I wanted to make something beautiful


My paintings, my sketches, etchings that had no reasoning to them

The ones that people praised and called prodigious, when I didn't understand what they were supposed to be

I didn't try to do what I did, and those were the things people liked

The art I put effort into, the things I was proud of, those were greeted with nods and "oohs" from my parents

Which is funny in retrospect, ironic I should say

That even in my drawings people still liked the shallow parts of me, and remained unimpressed by the things that came from my heart


As a kid, I did dozens of little paintings and doodles everyday

I did them for my mom, for my dad

No matter how many times kids made fun of me because I couldn't colour in the lines and I scribbled, no matter how many times I cried, I still did it

My parents liked them, even though they knew they weren't any good

They said they were beautiful


I read a series when I was eleven called "Beautiful Creatures", and one of the main characters wrote poetry

I read what this fictional character said and wrote, and thought that I could probably do that

That's when I started writing

My first poems were clumsy, a kid trying to ice skate for the first times

Ideas I'd been taught about love, cynicism

I thought they were great, and other people said they were too

It always came back to my age and how young I was

It took me longer than it should have to realize that they were just doing what parents do for their young kids and their artwork

My poems weren't that great, but I used to think they were brilliant


People compliment me on my improvement in art and writing, and I think back to where I was and cringe

I still cringe, because I still have so much work to do, to create something that matters and makes people feel the way I felt when I read Maya Angelou and Edgar Allan Poe

The way I feel looking at Picasso and his portrait of Guernica, that's how I want my art to make people feel

I want people to feel small, but not in a bad way

I want them to feel alone but unique, like only they experience this art in the way they do


Art and writing are means of expession, but they only go so far

So I have to keep crafting, until I get it right

I won't know when I get it right, people like the things I do unintentionally

I want them to see, and I want them to understand

It's what every artist and writer says, but it's true

That's what this is really all about, not storytelling, not painting

It's about that one sentence, one character in a painting, one streak of colour

That's all it takes to change everything for one person


So why do I keep emphasizing beauty throughout this prose?

Because that is what it all boils down to

Unity is beautiful, diversity is too, colourful paint splatters are beautiful, just like the black and white of ink on paper


Beauty is ironic, that is why I can't formulate it, there are hits and misses

Beauty, to me is making people realize something they hadn't before

That's why I struggle, why every writer and painter struggles

We replicate beauty through old realizations, so we must struggle to find new ones to write about, otherwise it ceases to be beautiful.


That's why I keep writing and painting.

The reason I write and paint is I am only a person who wants to be beautiful

But if I can't do that, then I will make something beautiful.