Dear Artists...

 Today is my birthday. Another day around the life cycle. I feel grateful to be alive. I have a mix of emotions. But I am learning to live in these emotions and ride the waves. However, the day was exceptional. I received love and I never thought that would happen still at my age of 28. As I grow older, I began to look back at my life. How I started to emerge as an artist and how God shaped my artistic direction. As a child, I was introduced to the world of animation through my uncle. My uncle Keith was such an influence on my life. He was very present in how I was exposing myself to different genres of cartoons. He was and still is an amazing drawer and visual artist. As time progressed, I saw myself wanting to be just like that. I wanted to see the world the same way her saw the world. I felt like my uncle saw the world in a creative yet softer point of view. I felt like her saw the emotion in everything which translated in his art. He was also a gamer. I too started to draw. I wanted the world to recognize me as how my uncle recognized the world, as art. Continuing my artistic journey, I was consumed with animation and television. Living with my grandmother, I found myself taking up the tv even when she wanted to watch the news. God rest her soul as she was such a staple in my life and still is. Anywho, drawing became a way to express my emotions that I didn't understand at the time. So Much that I still draw till this day. I feel comfortable drawing with pencil and color pencil. I have a skill where I can take a picture and immediately draw it on paper. Or I will see an image of something and copy and paste it visually on a piece of paper. That gift stuck with me for years. I was so deep into drawing, I remember telling my parents and grandparents that I would be an artists someday. Even though I had big dreams, my mother (Who was young at the time) informed me that I would need to have another plan to survive in the world. I don't blame her for telling me this because we all need another skill to be able to have so that we can have multiple streams of income. However, my little brain didn't process that at the time. I felt like my dreams were crushed. Furthermore, I felt like I didn't know what else to do. I felt lost in my own dreams. I just kept thinking what I was going to do. I saw my mother in her career as a computer scientist and my auntie being an Engineer. On my mothers side and fathers side, we dont have successful artists. It's a craft of expression but not something they truly made money out of. My mother is even artsy, she can draw, sing, make jewelry and crochet.  She is a talented woman. But she had to put some of those things behind her so that she could provide for her family, me and my siblings. I love her so much for has and is still doing for us. However, when it came to me, I still wanted to do something that would sustain myself and not be stuck in survival. At the age 7 or 8, my mother was in the choir. And I wanted to feel what she felt. Seeing her on stage seemed like she was a super hero. Like she was changing the world with her voice. I wanted to have the same super power. I also knew from a young age that music was a major part of my identity as well, because When I heard my auntie play No doubts album or hearing Outkast or Fantasia, I could feel the sounds in my blood. I could see the colors of the songs. I could visualize and attach the emotions to my own.  I then joined the chorus at age 11 in middle school. I too can sing. I joined the chorus because I still feel the same connection to art and singing was the closest thing to it. I actually took chorus serious. So serious that I started to sing at home and learn from different artists. I started to copy tone, dialect, influxes. I trained my own voice. Listening to different songs in chorus and at home help me expound upon music. Music propelled me to want to make others feel the way I felt as a child. The words and sounds changed my life. I did want to make music at one point. I wanted to show the world that I could create visuals and sounds out of my voice. I truly did and still do want to make an artistic experimental body of work. These dreams began to grow, and I wanted to introduce myself into the art world. As I graduated middle school, I began to seek out other like minded teens in high school. I wanted to expose myself to the world of art. I wanted to immerse. I also had started to develop an awareness of social media as instagram and Facebook were reaching out to my generation lol! Now they are like a monopoly and social media was not like it is now. Social media during the 2012- 2018 era aloud you to really talk and reach out to artist. Especially tumblr and instagram. Anywho, When I gained friends who had exposed me to different things in the art world such as fashion and just the underground art seen, I began to notice I had nothing to offer. People would love my energy and style. People would love my friends. My friends had things planned for their art dreams. One of my friends was an aspiring model and auditioned to be an American Apparel model at like 15. My other friend was making music and doing graphic design. they had no trouble with networking and exposing their craft to others. I was the only one in the group that didn't have anything to offer. People would ask what I did and at the time I didn't know. I remember at one party, which was an after party for Lil yachty. He pulled up in his new G-wagon. I was underaged at the time and so was my friend. the party was 21 and up. We were able to sneak in. they didn't card us. It was like pure fate, pure destiny. I had my first drink there. A jack and coke. I was immersed and didn't want to leave. These beautiful women approached me and my friends and asked, "what do you guys do." My friend stated that she models, and yet didn't have one gig booked. But what I realized was, was hat she was shopping her 3D reality. she already had created In her world that she was a model. Today, as I write, she has been in campaigns, signed to a model agency and done many other modeling gigs all before 29. At that time of being asked what I did, I didn't have an answer but I had to think of something. One of the things I Had been doing was writing poetry but I didn't take it serious. I was talking to this guy in DC who I had met through the internet. I was writing poetry because I was just an emotional teen who didn't understand anything but my self centered emotions. But I found peace in rhyming words together and making it sound so beautiful. I wrote amazing pieces. So I told the girl who asked me what I did, that I am a writer. She said "Oh really and when can we expect to see and hear something." I replied it's coming very soon and shared my social handles. The feelings I felt, felt so good. I felt apart, I felt like I Had beat the odds. I felt seen. I felt heard. I felt like I had told that little boy that didn't think he would ever write that, I could and I can. I felt like I told my mother that she was wrong and that I was going to make it as an artist. It felt like I was finally tapping in. I too then began to shape my 3D reality. As I grew older and transitioned into college. I became consumed with the idea of keeping up and following others, I forgot myself. I began the journey of learning what and what not to do. I was a horrid person. However, in 2019, I began ti go through a journey of enlightenment. I took shrooms and I feel like I shouldn't have. But what came out of that was ego death. I began to rebuild who I was. I wrote my first poetry book. Writing began to show up in my life once again. I was in college mind you and I had changed my major 3 times already. First it was psychology, then it was Computer science, and after it was Business management information systems. I could barely manage my emotions and I hated numbers, so those degrees were not for me. I needed up going back to my roots. I ended up going back to that little boy and believing in myself. I began to write poetry and the words became such a beautiful experience. Blossom was my first release. I wouldn't advise anyone to buy or read, but I knew it meant something. I knew it was a beginning of the rest of my artistic journey. Of course I wasn't to serious about it. But with time and discipline comes tunnel vision and focus. But like everyone who have internal battles, I was still dealing with the outside noise. I didn't believe in me or God or the art. I was still believing what people had told me. "You need a back up plan." "You can't make money just off art." It rang through my head for years. I started to inebriate the thoughts.  I was also struggling with other things in addition but I smoked and drank for years. It became too debilitating to where I couldn't function without drugs and chaos. Until recently when I started to want more for myself. Until I wanted to stop following my old habits and start to lead and lean into my new life. I wanted to stop distorting my path and start to lean into my new 3D manifestation. I needed to believe in my writing and craft. I needed to live a life of discipline, focus and to be able to say " I am a famous poet." I am a famous poet. because Today I am a famous poet and writer. Today, I am totally different from the teen who wasn't;t sure of who I was. Today I would make the little boy who was ashamed to dream of being an artist because he felt that capitalism and corporate America didn't have room for him to express and be himself. Today, I am still writing and making a blueprint for myself fin the writing world. Today, in this era, I am working on my second poetry book, writing a series and acquiring a successful brand on social media platforms. and its all because I decided to take another path and I decided to take control of my own journey. I couldn't have done it without God, my grandparents, my dad, my uncle, my mother or siblings. Even though things were rough and even though I was told certain things that I identified with, I still had a mustard seed of faith in myself that changed and shaped my 3D life today. I do not smoke or participate in any type of drug either. So I wrote all of this to say, if you are an artist who is still struggling to get out of your own way. you are not alone. I am still learning how to fully move to. I am taking baby steps. I haven't for sure moved completely, but I am making the effort to so that I can truly be free from the chains that bound me in my craft and in my mind. I want to encourage you to believe in yourself no matter what. I want to encourage you to continue to keep faith and hope. I want to encourage you to keep dreaming and also put the action in your dreams. Stay focused and disciplined in whatever you love. You will too make it out. and its not about age or time. don't let that scare you.  I am unlearning that as well. Its all about how you do what you love in the mist of all the thing happing around you. The days and the time we as humans created, waits for no one. Tell yourself you are a famous artist who lives in wealth internally and externally.Tell yourself that you will be financially stable because of your art. We can do it together. Repeat after me. " I am a famous artist who is financially stable off of my art work and I am wealthy internally and externally." Continue to say this until you believe because I believe this and you should too. Love and light. xoxo