Doubt
For months, I would say to myself and my boyfriend that I wanted to be a painter and an artist. Great. Except, I wouldn’t paint. I doubted my skill and ability to take it from a hobby to a hustle. I would shut down every idea I had because I thought it was either stupid and no one would like it or I didn’t think that I would be able to execute the idea well enough and it wouldn’t live up to my vision. After months of paralysis by analysis, someone eventually told me that “sometimes, you just have to let the bad stuff out first.” That piece of advice coupled with the motivation I gained when Tiffany Latrice invited me to show work at TILA Studios opening exhibit, In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens helped motivate me. I finally got out of my own way enough to finish an abandoned painting, Dancing on Broken Glass.
Dancing on Broken Glass
Dancing on Broken Glass is my visual interpretation of making the most out of a bad situation in black culture. It’s about what African Americans have accomplished in this country and the culture that we are constantly creating not despite, but because of the hard times we endure, often as a coping mechanism. It’s also about how outside parties steal and misappropriate that culture. Would you rather walk in the glass or dance in it? If you dance long enough, maybe you’ll stop feeling the pain.
Feel the Fear and Do it Anyway
Right now, I’m just trying to let the bad stuff out. So no promises on how “good” my work is going to be, just know that there will be work. Don’t get me wrong, I never lost the fear. Shit, I’m scared right now. I’m just trying to do it anyway. If there’s anything I’m learning and trying to put in practice this year is to not let fear be the motivator behind my actions.
Dancing on Broken Glass, 16×20 Oil on Canvas
They make you walk on glass, so you danced to make the best of it just for them to steal those dances too.
