Struggled with this years assignment - last year fleeing into concepts that - spoke to me, that peaked my interest, that spoke to me, which is also - in some way- a self reflection, an image of me and my personality/personhood, but I could hide behind the curtain of another layer, a safety net. This year - more confronting - what defines me as a teacher and artist? What defines be in general? Who am I exactly? What’s my identity? These are questions I tend to ignore, I hide them away in a dark corner somewhere, out of sight out of mind, as long as I can ignore it I don’t have to actually think about it and reflect on myself as a person because deep down I’m scared to think about who I ‘really’ am, because I fear that - even after reflecting on the deepest parts of myself — I would come out empty handed, I don’t have the slightest Idea of who I really am or what defines me. I have a fractured self-image. (“when I imagine myself, I am always leaving, I couldn’t draw my own face if god asked” <— leaving things behind, leaving personality traits behind, leaving myself behind. Im always changing)
ex. As a child I used to love so much, I loved every living thing, I was overly social , I went up to complete strangers as and would tell them anything and everything, I loved all the animals up to the most insignificant little bug, even spiders. i had so much sympathy, I hated seeing anything or anyone in pain and would do anything to prevent them from hurting a second longer. When things got bad at home I used to play shop with my own toys, I’d select the ones I thought I needed least and line them all up in my room, then I’d let my brother and sister come in and choose their favorites. I let them have my possessions as and they let me have the feeling of satisfaction - of being able to make them happier. (Once I got this fake phone that my brother begged to have but I’d never give it to him, it was my proudest possession. Until he came home crying one day, he hated his new school and the people there. He was scared and inconsolable and I couldn’t stand to see him in so much pain, id do anything to take it from him, so I did. And I gave him my proudest posession. My parents always tell me how much of an empathic kid I was, how I used to always stick up for the ‘weak’, how I’d always befriend the outcasts. Kids that looked a little different or acted a bit weird, the kids that got bullied. They always admired that about me.)
But things change, we change. i grew older and More selfish. I became harsh and cold, and I learned to fear — and sometimes even hate — spiders.
The things that used to define me then no longer applied, I was no longer that same ‘empathetic, sweet giving girl’. My identity isn’t constant/invariable.
I feel as if there’s not a single thing that has been a constant in my life. Everything is always changing. So how do I define myself?
Something similar has been happening to me lately. The past few years have been (opposite of stationary - bumpy ride-inch) and a lot of change has happened — both outside and within myself. One of the only ‘constant’ things I had in my life was my ‘creativity’. Since I was a child I was ‘the artist’ kid. I was always drawing, it was what I loved and what I was good at. It defined me. When people got the task of describing me ‘creative’ or ‘artistic’ was almost always the first word that came up. So what to do when one off those key components of your personality just - suddenly- falls away?
Over the past few years I’ve been slowly losing my passion for art, for creating, for making and expressing myself through creation. I used to draw as an outlet, I found release in creating and satisfaction, rest, consolation. But recently it only brings me ache. drawing now only brings me zelf-doubt and criticism, insecurities and frustration. There no longer is any release. I stopped drawing for myself a long time ago, and then I stopped drawing all together. It feels like a part of me has been lost, and left a big, gaping, empty hole. Thinking about it makes me feel useless and broken, as if the one thing that I had, the one thing that was truly ‘mine’, had been stolen from me. And I honestly don’t know who I am without it. Who am I if not the one thing I used to identify as, the one thing that characterised me.
(I used to want to become a writer at a certain time in my life, I used to write all the time. Little song, comics, stories I mad up in my head, silly poems,…. And I used to be good ad it. Until I realised that was an unrealistic - unobtainable - goal. So I changed my goals - and I stopped writing all together. I stopped doing it and with that lost my knack for it - Words used to flow out of my pen like a stream, like a waterfall. I had so many ideas in my head, so many worlds that I had to put out into the world and I wrote them all down. now words no longer come naturally to me, it’s hard to express myself through language. I grew sceptic and built my own dam. I think I did the same with my art/drawing. But I realise I havent actually ‘lost’ my passion for writing. it just changed. I love literature. I love reading books and stories and I can lose myself in a poem or quote. And sometimes I still find myself writing creatively. Maybe not on purpose, i don’t sit myself down to write a story or create poetry. But when I’m lost in a conversation - without the pressure of creating or a result — I can still catch myself — sometimes — writing deeply, philosophically, poetically.
I think this is a very important concept. The idea of nothing being constant. We’re constantly changing, constantly evolving, we’re always busy reinventing ourselves, building upon old ideas and characteristics, sometimes even breaking them down and starting anew. But I think maybe that’s exactly what it means to be an artist, or maybe even a human. - at it’s core- at the core lies that ability to change. We have to adapt to our environment, our situation. It’s how we survive and how we grow. Learning how to gain skills and ideas, but also change or lose others is of vital essence to our existence. Artists are constantly learning new things, they practice to improve, they —— teacher - also constantly adapting to new situations, to their pupils, their colleagues, changes that happen in class-the school- society, or even personal changes in their life or within themselves. adaptability is how we are able to survive.
We are constantly discovering new things, learning new things undergoing new experiences, forming new ideas and philosophies. All of these things have an impact on us, they change us, our way of thinking, our views,..; we keep learning. All these experiences, everything we go though, we adapt those things into our own mind.
See I’m no longer that sweet, empathetic little girl, but I am also not that angry 16year old teen anymore. (Well sometimes I am, the truth is I carry her around inside me, all the time, and I always will. But) (I learned to love again, I learned to care and give again and i’m slowly growing back into that little girl that was so full of love that she didn’t even know where to put it all. ) And in a couple years when I find myself standing in front of a class, looking back at this moment, I’ll realise I am also no longer the same person I am today. But I’ll always carry the people I was with me, — in the shape of lessons, knowledge, experience — they’ll always be a part of me.
> kusnt - eigen kunsten/tekenen - wat me aantrekt/aanspreekt = lichamen, menselijke lichaam, naakt, puur, vleselijk, vormen, curves, levend
The thing about art that always caught my attention was the emotional side. It’s ability to be able to touch a part of the soul in a way that no other thing can. It evokes something in you, wakes something up. I never cared all that much about the aesthetic side of it, the physical beauty. Bright colours, clean lines and well balanced compositions never really peaked my interest. But the emotions that art could evoke or the emotions you could express/release through art, that was true beauty for me. The humanity in making art, art as the urge to create, that drives us to creation — because there is something inside you that’s so desperate to get out , that it needs it’s own medium, it’s own way to express itself — that’s what called to me. What art was all about.
I guess I’ve always had a certain interest in ‘humanity’ in that way. I was always curious about people, how their minds worked, how they felt or experienced thins, what made them who or what they were, the things that made them tick.
And yes - I was interested in the human psyche - I read about psychology, how the human brain worked all the theories and ideas. Which —sure was interesting enough— but all so scientific and distant, it never could give me what the arts could. This certain empathic knowledge, thought stories, through poetry and lyrics and drawings I felt like I could actually understand other people, and they me, in return. through these I found a way to connect with the world and people around me, and with myself.
I tend to look for the very human things in everything. As I child I used to give ’numbers’ personalities and a backstory, so I could relate more to them. I get interested in new thing through other people’s passions. I developed a passion for mathematics (calculus and algebra) through the views of character of a story I once read. She loved calculus because — opposed to a most real life problems — there’s always a clear solution. i get interested in cities and subjects through books, movies, art of other peoples experiences and stories around those subjects.
Even when my decision to study advertising was based on a very humaine idea. See most people would argue advertising is very inhumane, it’s a harsh competitive world and all you do is cheat and manipulate people into doing or buying things they probably don’t need, just for the profits. i had no interest in advertising originally. Until I saw a poster of a spider next to a landline, with the title ‘belle en het beest’. it amused me so much that I decided to on my major then and there, just because of the humor — which is an inherently human trait. (The reason I gave up on advertising as a carrier after a mere 2months of interning, was also that. It wasn’t humaine, it was harsh and cold and distant. And people were treated as robot’s, replaceable parts of a big machine. It was soul crushing. Teaching — I think — is quite the opposite. It’s one of the most humble and selfless jobs one could do. You sacrifice your time to educate the next generation, mould them so they’re ready to go into the world. You have to help shape them and show them the way, help them discover themselves and everything around them. you have to care a lot for this profession. About your skill, but also the children. To be a teacher you have to possess a certain type of love, a love for kids, people, humanity as a whole. (And it’s future) you have to care. And you do, even tho the majority of your pupils might not appreciate or even realise it at the time. It can be a thankless job at times, I think, but definitely one of the most humaine ones.
