LIFE IS SO MUCH BETTER WHEN YOU CREATE ART
Our journey in life can be challenging most of the time, and so is creating art. They can be frustrating and rewarding at the same time because they both lead to a sense of accomplishment or determination to do more things. Art can do so many things to our life, and life can mean so much to our art.
Creating art changed the way I look at my problems. What I mean by this is that before, I always view “problems” as an inconvenience, like a thing that I want to go away as soon as it comes. The thing that always puts pressure on you to come up with a solution right away, and if you don’t, it will turn into a bigger problem. It made me understand that instead of denying our problems, we should welcome them. We should accept the fact that these problems happen and that they are always an opportunity to improve ourselves or others. Think of it as winning or losing, but you cannot lose, it is either you win or learn.
It was always a challenge for me to overcome the common mindset we have when a problem comes up, and that is to come up with answers and solutions immediately. Art taught me that there would always be a process in creating an artwork that we simply cannot rush. Conceptualizing is done at the beginning, and expect the finished artwork at the end. Like solving our problems, it has a process, and we have to expect the solution at the end, not at the beginning of the process. Another way to look at it is like cooking. We expect the dish after cooking and not at the start of it.
“You can’t stop the waves, but you can learn to surf.” –Jon Kabat-Zinn.
I’ve always experience happy accidents in making my artworks. These are things that I thought would ruin my art as a piece, but most of the time, these accidents made it better. This also made me realize the perspective I had with problems and challenges in my life. It has taught me that the way through these struggles is to acknowledge and accept them. Problems are a normal and natural part of the creative process and life in general.
