Growing up, I spent a lot of time creating. Oddly, my earliest memory of doing anything art related was in our family living room. At the time my parents had just purchased a 5 acre farm, I was maybe 5-6 years old. My aunt was living with us as my sister and I’s babysitter full-time. A common activity for us was sitting around our big box television playing on our Sega Genesis or Super Nintendo. Every once in a while my aunt would break out some coloring books and we would draw and color. It took a while for me to get into coloring, I thought it was boring but always felt an odd satisfaction in coloring within the lines. I know, what a square.

During one of our coloring sessions I vividly remember my aunt prompting me to continue coloring the page even after I had colored within the lines of the image. I am still not sure if she told me to do that because she wanted me to explore my creativity (I like to think this was case) or because I was busting through pages of coloring books. Coloring books were expensive AF in the late 90s, IYKYK.

Any who - once I broke though those lines it was game over. I began to explore color and my imagination as I filled coloring books with my own inspirations. Albeit, this did not really stop me from busting through coloring books. This was just the start…

Fast forward through grade school and high school, any chance I had to draw or color I took it. I was notorious for drawing on my desk, my teachers would always scold me but also loved the pieces I would create. Leading up to my senior year of high school I exclusively only took AP or college prep courses. Planning out my final year of high school I prioritized ‘experience’, I wanted to try new things. So I signed up for like 3-4 art classes, this is where I was introduced to painting and photography. I met literal artists and my perception of creative expression changed completely.

I began painting almost exclusively, landscapes, graffiti, canvas, you name it. My freshman year of college I would regularly set up a canvas or pallet in the quad and make graffiti art and paint. It was a very freeing phase in my life, creativity oozed out of me. And just like that it all came to a halt.

My sophomore year of college I went through my graffiti phase, it was epic. I was tagging everything, I even remember taping off my dorm room walls with paper and canvas so I could graffiti my wall. It was a fun year, I learned about street culture and exploring a new craft. Towards the end of that year I stopped painting and doing generally anything creative. I still don’t know why the sudden cut off but I never really ‘got back into it’.

Reflecting now, it makes me sad. Being a creator is both liberating and empowering. Things did not change after that, the years to follow were chaotic. To be honest - I really believe that chaos seeped into other aspects of my life in unhealthy ways. It was hard to recognize that absent expressive channel as a factor in hindsight.

Fast forward to now and the NFT space, while the cliche ‘NFTs are about the Art’ is abused - it means a lot to me. Not so much from the consumer perspective, but from the creator perspective. I am still trying to find out what that looks like but exploring this new space has been a revival. I am ready to color outside of the lines again.

That said, AGMI (Art is Gonna Make It).