Just do you

(I am sorry if this looks like a big rambling. I currently have a hard time organizing my thoughts properly, thanks to this fibro fog that likes keeping me company for longer than I would want).

We all start somewhere. I  don’t believe in overnight success. Maybe it happens, but I do firmly believe in hard work (even those who work only 2-3 hours a day, they’re not procrastinating).

I always have had a hard time with owning who I am, even as a kid. I found myself to be quite peculiar, not really fitting in. This feeling is still creeping in now and then.

However, what changed over time is that I now know my core values, and get more and more comfortable with myself (don’t get me wrong, I am not totally there yet).

I started Mixed Media in the summer of 2008. I watched back to back videos from Suzi Blu, Tamara Laporte and Samantha Kira. I signed up for classes. And I started simply by trying to do exactly what we were tought in class, same shapes, same compositions, same color and same everything (I am not a good copycat, however. When I look at it, it was pretty ugly, but it was huge steps for me). 
It took me about three years of practice and frustration to get where I am now. Finding my creative voice, creative style. It is, for me, the same in real life. Trying to be someone I was not, too scared of what people would think if I simply was the quirky but funny, smart but insecure, spiritual and not religious, Me. Just Me.

The creative universe is just a mirror of what it is in the everyday as well.

We tend to adapt our personality regarding who we are with, putting different masks, sometimes building tall strong walls. Becoming someone we are not, not really.

And I guess that at some point, this is what makes us feel safer. We are not risking to expose ourselves to potential rejection by putting on these different masks… But it took me a decade to notice that I was not myself around people (and I do qualify myself as being sometimes socially awkward)

What is authenticity ? what is being true to who I am, without compromising it to fit in ?  I think this is why I was pulled to star my «Pieces of Me» series of painting, to let all these personas come to life on paintings. There are me, (or were, or will be).

Something became really important to me, my daily mantra, one I live by: Speak your Truth. Accept that Truth is something personal. Know that Truth may change.

This song, from India.Arie’s new album, sums it up beautifully.