My Journey to Rediscover the Enjoyment of Creating
I have always been crafty, loved to make things with my hands and enjoyed watching others do so. Despite showing interest from a very young age in drawing, sewing, making postcards and other kinds of crafts, my interests were never acknowledged by my family or teachers. There was always someone better than me in our family or school who overshadowed me and my work. Since I have always known beauty and appreciated talents, I never complained but couldn’t accept the ignorance I received even when I deserved more.
I remember being a reasonably good drawer at middle school without professional training. Teachers and families overlooked this ability of mine. One specific art teacher put me down further by giving me a lower grade even though it happened many times that my drawings were better than everyone else’s in the class. Once I was so annoyed that I decided to prove to myself and others that I deserved better. I gave a drawing of mine to a friend in another class to present to the same teacher. Amazingly she got the best mark on that drawing which was actually mine.
Since then, I realised that people don’t give you credit for the quality of your work but for their admiration of you and your work!
I never received any art training and was desperate to acquire others’ validation of my works. I tried to impress any acquaintance by showing them my artworks. Once I spent hours drawing my little brother’s face and presented it to my father’s friend, who was our guest. He looked at the drawing, ignorantly said a couple of meaningless words of admiration and a minute later killed a mosquito on the page I had drawn on. The mosquito’s blood made the paper black and dirty right next to the cheek of the plump boy I had drawn. A feeling of sadness and disappointment rushed toward my face and shaped a downturned mouth; I grabbed my drawing and left the room while trying to clean the dark red spot with my hand. I still have that drawing; I have all my drawings, even the ones my teacher graded. I also have millions of drawings and paintings of my daughters. I have decorated my house with my daughters’ and local Iranian and Australian artists’ beautiful works of art but there is none of my drawings or paintings anywhere in my house. I think at some point in life I accepted that I am not good enough and stopped trying!
A while ago when I started to live wholeheartedly again, I also started to experience the enjoyment of making crafts, drawing and painting once again. I even enrolled in an online watercolour painting course. I started to create original artworks and crafts. This time I was lucky to have my daughters encourage me, admire my work and even decorate their rooms with my works of art!
Life is like a carousel!
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