I don't remember much from my childhood, however I do remember the excitement I felt when it came to art. Everything is a blur but not a single memory seems to be out of place when the subject of art comes to mind. I believe that my passion for art began in elementary when my school would hoist an art class every other month for a week, introducing us to different cultures that was the theme of our art projects.
Nearly in every subject I have had a struggle in, such as Math and Science, but when it came to art I always excelled in the subject. The freedom I felt being able to do what I wanted on paper with little to no judgement was appeasing. There was never a right or wrong when it comes to art because each individual's art style and the way we perceive art is always changing.
What I could remember that inspired me to continue to make art a priority in my life, was my grandparents and my family. My grandma was a very religious woman and raised me around the Bible which is the reason for a majority of my characters being either demons or angels, no matter how many demons I made my grandma always accepted it with a smile and told me to make more. After school when I would be at my grandparents finishing homework, I would immediately began to draw anything that popped into my mind. My grandpa was a very quiet man that kept to himself, he couldn't express his emotions but he always made the effort to express his support in my art by giving me money that I used to buy more sketchbooks and pens. It always made me happy to show him a new drawing I made with the items I had gotten with his support. My family was just as supportive in my art because I was the only member in the family that could draw more than stick figures. My tio's, who were into Marvel or DC, would always lend me comic books or books titled as "The Art of ______", to allow me to grab more inspiration.
Before I confirmed my career path as an Art teacher, I first wanted to be a tattoo artist. Growing up and even now, whenever there was a family event the cousins sat together, my oldest cousin would lend me a pen and ask me to draw on her and consider it her newest tattoo. When I was a little girl, it made me proud to think that my cousin was showing off her new "tattoo" made by me. Now that I am older, I assist my cousins by designing them their ideal tattoo.
Art has always been my gateway to feeling like myself when I couldn't be. To be able to tell bits of my life story through my characters was therapeutic for me. My art is my world and it is my sanctuary that I have always desperately needed. What I have been taught and what I have discovered on my own, I want to be given the opportunity to teach that to my future students. To teach them that art is more than colors, landscape, and portraits. It's to express emotions, dreams and ideas that inspire or move you. It can cause viewers to understand what your mind was going through and allow them to relate without words. Art is always changing that is the beauty of it. It is never the same from one artwork to the next.