Live Drawing

I remember very clearly. This was a plant sitting at the entrance of my parents house. I was only fourteen years old at the time. I stood there for few hours drawing it from the real plant. I remember very vividly checking the leaves for colour variations. Examining it closely to make sure I get the different shades right.

I hear a lot of people talking about how they can remember memories form their early childhood, when they were very young like; 2,3 or 4 years old. I don’t remember any of that. Maybe my earlier memories goes to 9 or 10 years old, when I was in school and something that happened then.

But funny enough, I remember where and how I was when I have made something. When I look back at the photographs, illustration or video clips, I remember that moment very clearly. This was one of them.

If you look very closely you would see some tears and wrinkles on the paper. I was very proud of this piece when I did it, so I took it o one of the family parties to show it to my cousins. For reasons that I can’t remember now, as soon as I showed it to them, one of them grabbed it out of my hand and started running. Like bunch of hungry thieves fighting over a piece of bread they all tried to grab it out of each others hands and win it. As I mentioned I don’t remember why this was happening but I needed to save this masterpiece from theses monsters.

After few minutes of running and screaming, I got the drawing as a crunched up piece of rubbish in my hand, in shock of the confusing chaos.

As it was so precious to me, I managed to restore it to flat state by putting in the carpet and applying pressure. Now about twenty five years later I am sharing it with you.

This piece is great reminder of who I was as a kid, at least in my memory. These days I am practicing letting that little kid out to the real world. I am working on being myself more. Accepting all of my flaws, fears and insecurity is a big part of it.

Somewhere around those years, I started hiding inside and put all those natural tendencies aside. But I can not do that anymore. Keeping all of that inside has made me really sick, I need to let it go, I need to let it out.

Forgiving myself, regrets and even anger toward others for not recognizing or even reinforcing that entrapment is also a big part of it.

I love this work because of all that represent to me, with all its imperfections. It is a great reminder to accept myself as I am. For sure work on getting better everyday, but don’t be scared to be yourself.