trusting yourself

I've found my calling as an artist, as a photographer.  It's all I want to do for the rest of my life.  I want to find inspiration, to create and to share my vision with the world in order to find connection.  

I have always been an artist, ever since I was young.  But until very recently, I never felt it was a worthwhile pursuit.  My talent wasn't really acknowledged growing up and if it was, I was never really encouraged to pursue an artistic career because my family was very practical and art was somewhat of a fantastical idea rather than a solid plan to build a future on.  But being an artist on the inside and repressing her so hard made life very difficult.  I wasn't "normal"- I couldn't hold down a normal job and felt trapped and miserable in a normal life.  I always felt strange and broken.

My environmental portraiture centers around this life experience.  My fears, dreams, nightmares, anxieties, disappointments are all featured in the works I've created.  Much of my life has been lived with negative/sad/angry/disappointed/fearful emotions swirling around inside me.  Picking up my camera and using my artistic gifts to create works that express what it feels like to live with these feelings of incompleteness and abnormality has offered me an incredible sense of catharsis and relief.
I now acknowledge that I was designed this way for a reason - to experience a normal life abnormally and feel what I've felt to make this work, express myself artistically and emotionally and connect with others who might feel the same way.  I could never render these images if my life had turned out any other way.

To all the loving people who maybe to help or fix my discontent - this is why I resisted!  To the people who have felt like I do (the artists in denial/repression/confusion) - you may feel different, feel crazy, feel like you'll never fit in, but you are not alone!  We are one and I hope my images offer you a sense of connectedness, amidst their landscape of isolation.

Express yo'self!