I have been drawn to many art forms. I personally feel I can be most creative through film-making, specifically directing and cinematography. I feel an escape through movies and want to create my own worlds. This led me into falling in love with photography. Shot positioning, editing and color grading sweep me up, and I get lost in it. Recently, I truly connected with music. Losing myself while playing jazz songs for school finally sparked a desire to learn more. I am now learning how to produce music and play drums, guitar, piano and bass. Music is auditory, but it still gives me a feeling I can’t put into words. It is a different vessel to the same escape provided by film. I am now starting to learn about acting, too – trying to control my body language and express myself best in the moment. This passion is another offshoot of film-making. I am drawn to it from watching great actors like Gene Wilder, Leonardo DiCaprio, Scarlett Johansson and many more. 

Art provides me an outlet for what I am feeling.  I am an artist because for a long time I hid all of my emotions. I realize now that I was scared of showing who I really am. Initially, I thought the only way to not bottle my feelings was to talk to someone you trust, but that terrified me more than just staying silent.  Talking or writing your thoughts  can help, but some emotions can’t be expressed with words. Once I started trying to express my emotions, I found a state of being that I quite enjoy. There are various names for it in different cultures. Taoism calls it the flow state; it’s when you are so focused on a task that everything else in your life fades away. You are on a mission, fully immersed but embracing it, and sprinting to the light at the end of the tunnel no matter what is between you and that light. It could be anything: a song, a movie, a picture, drawing, writing, etc. It could even be sports, any passion that fills you with a drive. At that moment I can fully give myself to the natural flow of the universe. I am fully present in the current moment.

Art has helped me in so many ways. Consuming art has helped me feel less alone, to connect with artists and people I’ve never met and to understand yet another person’s perspective. Creating art helps calm my mind by releasing emotions and thoughts so that they don’t control me. Once I can express an emotion or thought, I can look at it from the outside and understand it better -why it’s there and if it’s justified, or if it’s something I should let go of. Usually it’s the latter.

Everyone has a different story to tell and different reasons for telling it. I am an artist because I want to be myself.