Mastery Through Curiosity

For some reason, when I was young I never considered myself an artist. I think maybe it was because I didn’t know an artist and so I just thought of it as a skill. I would draw all day in class on my desk and then go home and draw in notebooks. I would watch anime and play games and make up my own characters. I remember when I was probably 8 or 9 my mom was trying to force me to color. The more she pushed the more I resisted it, to the point where I didn’t even do those color by code puzzles in school. I would write what color the shape was and turn it in and I’d tell the teacher, “I didn’t color it but I know its a butterfly…..”

I think I held on too tightly to a certain perception of myself. I had some pride in the fact that I was skilled at the pencil and paper. Kinda like, this is my thing, don’t try to change me. That kind of thinking only pigeonholed me and made it harder to enjoy the thing I was good at. You start thinking damn, “what if I had learned to color and paint? Then maybe my drawings wouldn’t look so flat.” Then you get frustrated cuz you can’t make any meaningful breakthroughs on your own style. At that point I did a 180 and just dove into all kinds of mediums to try and get better at drawing. The idea was to get better at everything else, so that you gain the perspective from another direction. You can’t solve your problems by just staring at it from the same position you always have.

I did things like watercolor, realism, Sumi-e, wood carving, bonsai, aquascaping. I really just let my imagination guide me. I eventually got pretty good at it. Through that process I think I figured out what I am. I am just addicted to learning new stuff. I try taking everything I do to a really high level just so I can play with it. The unknown is just so interesting to me and I’m compelled to take challenges just to have a new perspective and then re-roll that perspective into something else. That something else right now is this business. I feel like everything I’ve put myself through has prepared me to take on this new challenge. I love the grind. Like everything you want to learn, you always gotta go through that phase, but it’s something I’ve always respected, because every shitty thing you overcome literally gets you closer to mastery. It’s tangible and you know for a fact that you’re now better because of it. I’m excited to see what the future brings. Everything I do I combine all my past experiences with. Business is so different than making art and if I could successfully combine the two, I know the outcome is gonna be awesome.