Art is Bigger Than I Imagined

When I started drawing I didn´t think I would embark so many projects, all so different from one another! And it has been awesome.

I don´t even remember when I started drawing. I think we all are born with at least a spark of curiosity and a desire to express ourselves through scribbling and doodling. In that way, it is a need inherent in human nature and if nurtured, it may be developed in a more profound and conscious way. That is why I think drawing is, at it's root, a deeply intimate and personal tool for shaping yourself.

I grew up in a very common and safe environment, but with no exposure to creative and artistic fields other than what is shown on the mainstream media or public art exhibitions. In that regard, I did not have a specialized upbringing. No one in my family was dedicated to the art field. I think we participate within the cultural channels that are available to us from the moment we define ourselves, within a cultural identity and a social context. Some of us choose to focus on developing our careers according to our interests. For me, that became a true challenge, I´ve always felt the need to know more and expand my capacities and knowledge from that initial spark of curiosity. Now I feel grateful for the sense of fulfillment in completing a task and viewing each project as a developing chain of complexity that participates in the world around you. I really believe that the greatest gift that you can let yourself have is not allowing you to think that you know enough.

Drawing is a language with which you learn how to describe things in your world, then you may even create new concepts by mixing and adding components from your experience. As Wittgenstein spoke about language shaping the mind, we shape our world as we erase away it´s boundaries and all things we can tell from one another through our senses. You don´t only draw from what you see, but what you think and know about those things, and that way you describe yourself, as your knowledge and character functions as a lens of sorts, projecting itself through the process of creation.

I truly believe I have shaped my life around art, but the basic tasks that are needed to complete a drawing or painting can be learned within a couple of sessions and those may be mastered along the way, until your last breath, and still, it will seem to you that you´ve never reached that ultimate mastery that you imagined.

Once I got to a certain level of expertise, I would just produce the images that I imagined, first trying out different materials and themes, trying out lots of different styles and enjoying the differences and similarities that each language could provide. That is why I never compromised to being defined as a “conceptual,” “abstract,” “figurative” or any description that would limit myself from the freedom of changing and starting over the process over and over again.

Once I started being commissioned by clients I tried to embark on every project disregarding if I knew enough of what they were about, trying to learn along the way the particularities of every field, especially when there was a chance on collaborating with other fields of expertise. I've always had a preference for endeavors that allow discussion with professionals of very different perspectives, that led me to writing about visual arts through blogs, having podcasts about the things I liked. The more you repeatedly make something, the more you will get better at it. I became a radio host and producer, I organized events and that shape your knowledge and abilities to becoming a curator, and a strategic planner for a big company, even becoming a civil servant at one point! It all came from learning how to draw, and even if every task required it´s own set of abilities and knowledge, I always pictured things being constructed form the same principles.

Drawing has allowed me to connect with a lot of people, knowing other artists has helped me keep my language malleable and it has allowed me to travel and learn other cultures. It has given me not only a means of survival but also a sense of purpose. I don´t think it has to do with talent or any kind of privilege, but the one thing I have convinced myself is that you surrender yourself to it, you get used to frustration, to the sense of not “winning” because you grew up with all these expectations from others.

Drawing is in that way, a never ending path that connects yourself to the world, and in drawing you shape yourself and thus the world itself changes as you shape the perspective of others.