For many people, Art, within all of its different kinds, can be viewed as a second language. Especially with how it can be used to send a message, convey emotion, and even be therapeutic for some. Art holds a great strength within one’s personal and community culture and identification. For me especially, this viewpoint on art is extremely prominent, especially with how am more of a reserved, heavy-thinking type, Where I usually only talk or express myself with those i’m comfortable with or when I feel like I need to. This leads most of my thoughts and feelings to go unnoticed, and are more likely portrayed and effected by different kinds of visual art and music that I either produce or view.
This effect that art has had on my life has started with me at a young age, for what I remember, as young as 5 or 6 years old. The earliest of these memories that I have of art having an impact on my life and how I view it starts all the way back to when I was in kindergarten. From what I can recall, there were these sheets of paper that seemed to be straight out of a coloring book, with thick black outlines of many things for the students to color in, such as flowers, cats, dogs, houses, mountains, butterflies, and the one I chose; Dinosaurs. I grabbed a piece at random from the Dinosaur pile because I’d always had an interest in creatures that either didn’t exist or haven’t for a while, basically anything you can’t just find at a zoo or outside. Drawing was also something to do on my own, because everyone else had already been talking or playing with their own friend groups that they’ve made. I had always been the odd one out in my classes, usually quiet and only talk to one or two people, This still in true to this day with, I may have many little friends groups, but it’s only the ones I’ve gained throughout life that I haven’t lost contact with.
After getting my sheet of paper to color I took a seat at one of the circular desks in the corner of the class, which being occupied by only 2 people at the time, one of them I don’t remember, but the other was William St Pierre. After sitting down I looked around and realized I neglected to grab any markers to color with, luckily William had some at the desk already, and so I asked to borrow some from him, he agreed and slid the box over to me. After I had my “work” and my “tools” I just jumped straight into it. As I was drawing I was being filled with a feeling not far off from adrenaline, just watching with every stroke of the marker, drop by drop of ink, I was not only filling the page, but my mind with color. It was like something I’ve never experienced before, as if I was in my own little world on that page, building it in my head as I fill my eyes with the pallet I was building of greens, blues, and oranges.
I finally completed it after a total time of 20 minutes, which the new excitement of coloring made it feel like 2 minutes and yet a year at the same time. The final product, a dinosaur, which i colored orange, in a jungle filled with trees, and lush green leaves, with even mountains and a great blue sky in the background. I was extremely careful when coloring in order to have the colors I chose be in their respective outlines, even if it meant not being so careful when it came to my fingers touching the tips of the markers. After finishing I went up to my kindergarten teacher, Ms. Shay, and show her what I had made. Her eyes lit up with pride in my work and said, “This looks really good Braxton, good job. Did anyone help you make this too?” I replied, “I did the coloring all by myself, but Will let me borrow his markers.”
From that moment, the power of creating had always been a great driving force for most of my personal ambitions, mostly from making drawings and also music, which I later discovered I had a talent and love for when I joined my school’s orchestra in fourth grade. Nonetheless, art, from this very moment onward from what I remember, had always been the most important impact on my life. From then on, I’ve done nothing but practice and expand on my skills to where I can say that I’m proud of what I’m able to make. I plan on improving my skills even more in the future to the point of making a career out of it, either as an animator or concept artist for a video game or animated show, an art therapist to where I can help people cope with their issues through the use of art in all of its forms, or even an art or music teacher so maybe I can make the same impact on others my giving the same opportunities to explore many different art forms as I did.