Day Three

I know things normally begin from day 1. But you see, I already spent day 1 and day 2 confounded with disbelief. Let me explain.

9 years ago (gosh I feel old!) every thing I had ever worked towards basically went to hell. Our lovely cultural mindsets, an inexplainable lack of finances and a completely unforeseen disaster (in the shape of breast cancer afflicting my mom), systematically broke down every step I had taken towards my dreams in the first 18 years of my life.

At that point, I guess I could have taken a step back, evaluated the situation and tried to rediscover who I was and what I wanted to do with my life. Instead, I got married. And I had kids. Now there’s nothing fundamentally wrong with that, but when you’re raising tiny human beings, you’re helping THEM discover who THEY are. And amidst the ever growing pile of RESPONSIBILITY (yup in capitals!) there isn’t really time to breathe, let alone achieve self actualization.

And yet, as so often happens, it turned out to be for the best. No time to breathe meant I had no time for resentment or for pointing fingers I knew very well where to point. Not to mention, it was the times my first two LOs were tucked in, fast asleep, on our big old brown couch that I opened that box full of old dried out paints and feathered paint brushes, and found myself again.

Arabic calligraphy classes, screen printing classes, giant community projects and loads and loads of time spent splashing paint all over the kitchen counters, lounge walls and our poor abused patio with two little toddlers screaming in excitement, is what followed. I grew, and grew and grew. Even though they were baby steps, self taught steps, trial and error steps, that didn’t matter. I could see myself evolving as my art evolved. And at the back of my mind, there was always this tiny little thought: I’m going to do my Masters in Fine Arts one day. But it seemed like such a far off dream.

So you can see why day 1, Tuesday to be specific, when I first joined into a group chat with my classmates on Skype passed by in such a haze.

Day 2 was spent researching. I checked the links my classmates sent containing their work. I checked the blogs our course leader sent made by previous students. I read random artists’ statements, explored community project ideas and waded through images on google looking for some clarity.

And now we come to Day 3: I am sitting here, typing this because I feel if this blog is to work, I have to be consistent with writing down my reflections. I have next to me, an open notebook, the one I use to scribble everything that pops into my head, and I’m working on this giant, convoluted mind-map as I try to figure out exactly WHAT I want to work towards in these next two years, and HOW I’m going to do it.

Stay with me.