There are 3 things that brought about this painting.
Rainy days. Poetry. Practicing how to draw hands.
Rainy days are an invitation to introspection. Singapore always had short, spontaneous bursts as if to fill out some imaginary quota to counter the heat of the day. In the Philippines, when it rains, the skies lay wild abandon. I wake up these mornings to a dimmer sky, the blankets beckoning me to sleep a little bit longer. My routines are disrupted, productivity pushed to the backburner as I give myself the time to create. Always with a cup of sikwate, the bittersweet chocolate scalding the roof of my mouth and leaving traces of earthy warmth down my throat before settling in my stomach.
But my life is not a movie. I can't suspend my disbelief whenever I'm overcome with painful thoughts. What if I don't get a spot again this year? What if we might not have enough money? What if I become stuck in this place? What if I never get out? What if I never make anything meaningful out of my life? Most of the time, these thoughts never present themselves as distinct from one another. They just come flooding in, a torrent of words tripping over themselves, branches snagging in the grooves and ridges of my brain. This heavy cloud of overwhelm envelopes me. It is easier to imagine myself failing than swimming against the current.
I recently came across this poem titled, The God Who Loves You by Carl Dennis, courtesy of my friend Ayasha who is always sharing beautiful pieces of literature on her social media— one of the reasons I still haven't deleted Instagram. The speaker of the poem talks about the possible paths that one's life could have gone, and that at the end of the day, it is God that bears the burden of the infinite lives one could have lived. The last four lines resonate with me the most as the poem reaches out to the listener, telling us to take ownership of our lives, and to regard God as a friend. The life you've witnessed, which for all you know is the life you've chosen.
Sit down tonight
And write him about the life you can talk about
With a claim to authority, the life you’ve witnessed,
Which for all you know is the life you’ve chosen.
Poetry, according to Amanda Gorman, is the language of bridges. I could not agree more. I think out of all written media, poems allow me to latch on to feelings that always seem to vanish before I get a close-up. Poems gives me the tools and to craft masterpieces from the raw material that keeps me up at night, spirals of rumination transformed into tunnels where my words could tug at another person's heartstrings, someone who could be feeling the same thing. Someone who might benefit from feeling held and loved in this world.
Drawing hands is one of my top goals in terms of improving as an artist during my gap year. Hands mean everything to me. They are probably the most used parts of my body. When I listen in class, my hands need to be doing something, it's hard for me to stay put. I've doodled hundreds of eyes in the margins of notebooks, practiced calligraphy in the forms of my friends' names. They're so hard to draw because they're so organic and geometric at the same time. Capturing a three-dimensional object in a two-dimensional surface means artists have to use the rules of depth and form to breathe life when rendering from life. Hands tell stories of people's lives with just a single glance. The calluses on the seams where my palm meets my fingers reminds me of the pull-ups I practiced over and over again. The scar on my index finger was a souvenir from swimming backstroke and getting caught in the lane rope. The tan on the back of my hands from five hours of paddleboarding, exploring nature, and meeting new people. The symbolic significance of hands is something I yearn to capture and integrate into my work. This painting started out as a normal exercise. Then I put thin layers of acrylic, going up in thickness with each layer. Dark to light.
I thought of Pandora, the first woman in Greek mythology. She was created by the gods to destroy man's paradise, to bring chaos into a perfect world. When she opened that box, horrors of all kinds were unleashed. Disease, worry, envy, hatred, violence, crime. And one thing, as some you already know how the story goes, remained. It was hope. Hope was the gift left behind so that humanity could withstand all these horrors and live a life worthy of one's choices. Sure, there are people out there who say it the most evil of all evils as it prolongs our torment, though, it's entirely up to you on how you frame hope in a world growing fraught more more hopelessness. With every stroke of dark purple I put on the paper, I thought of all the worries clouding my head, and how they always be there no matter what stage of life I am undergoing. But the orb of warm, yellow light ensconced in the hand tells me that there is so much waiting for me out there. And I do deserve to see all of it. I will see all of it.
A friend told me that the world is not going anywhere. In the meantime, I can keep on creating and doing what nourishes my soul. So, here's to rainy days, poetry, and drawing parts of the body. Should I do elbows next?
Much love and light,
Amanda
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