The Beginning of my Art Journey

Born in the early 90s, I was fortunate enough to grow up in a household where art equaled pressure-less peace and quality family time. Incorporating painting in nature into family vacations and watching my parents joyfully spend chunks of their free time drawing, painting, or generally doing little DIY projects around the house instilled a love of art and a confidence of freedom to explore it as I chose. Whether it was designing proportionally correct treehouse mansions on grid paper or redecorating my room every month, I felt an appreciation for my passion to create and an effort to encourage it rather than suppress or direct it. I remember my mom finding me in my room at 2am one night with headphones in as I painted a border of little orange checkerboard squares around my floorboards; she didn’t yell or tell me to stop, or ask why in all heck was I painting orange checker squares on the walls, she simply seemed appreciative that I had chosen to blast my music through headphones vs through speakers, and then the next morning asked how my progress was going. My dad was the expert artist in our family; a swim coach by day, he had majored in art history in college and had always managed to carve time out in his schedule for his second passion. He guided my artistic attempts the same way he coached on the pool deck - with quiet and cheerful support and only giving suggestions or directions if asked. As a result, I have always turned to my dad when I am stumped with an art problem - frequently calling him to ask him how he thinks I need to adjust my shadowing to make the cheekbone as prominent as it should be. In high school, art was a naturally happy class for me and I was blessed with a very supportive and peaceful teacher in Mr. Hatch. Mr. Hatch was quirky and happy and encouraging; he liked everyone and he liked art and he liked teaching his class because it gave him an opportunity to create and instill the power of creating in those around him in an environment that he enjoyed. He would demonstrate a drawing or painting technique to us, answer any questions, and then put on a type of music that I simply considered at the time as quirky yet peaceful, and leave us to create while he worked on small, quirky and pleasing depictions of people he knew - only interrupting my focus if I addressed him with a question. Mr. Hatch and I got along very well and I think he appreciated my enjoyment of his class. When I reached my Junior year I had already taken the only two art classes my small school offered so Mr. Hatch allowed me to simply sign up for the classes again and would allow me to just sit in the back and work contentedly and quietly on my own projects. He was one of my favorite teachers, though he probably didn’t know it. At the end of my senior year he told me that he hoped I found a way to pursue my art in whatever career patch i chose; I was dubious and took it as a high compliment but with no intention of following his advice.