Children begin developing fine motor control from the moment they are born. On average, a human infant masters the ability to grasp a pencil in one hand at five months old. That is when I began making art.
As a child, and then as a teenager, and now as an adult, I have been surrounded by role models telling me to turn my skills, or talents, depending on the voice, into a viable career. I declined. At age sixteen, I began working professionally as a production painter under Reginald Baylor. This came as a delight to those in my life who wished to see me succeed as an artist. It came as a delight to myself, who had never even considered the possibility of working visually without losing the desire to create. As of today, I am still painting for his studio, and enjoying it as much as I did when I started.
If asked to assign myself a role, I would call myself a painter or a muralist. These would be accurate, in that I show up to work and paint giant vertical pieces for seven hours before going home. I grew up in Milwaukee’s south side, surrounded by urban art both professional and amateur, massive murals spanning the sides of buildings and overpasses, and schools of koi fish swimming beneath my feet on the sidewalks. These are the types of artworks I see myself creating, although my own personal work is limited to the finite resources of my own room. More and more, my own gallery of work shifts from paintings and drawings to digital works done with simply a tablet and a plastic stylus.
When I do return to analogue, I find myself more inclined to partake in craft rather than traditional paint and canvas. Embroidery, leatherworking, wax casting, and papier mache are the activities I am drawn to on days where a screen cannot capture the contents of my creative desires. More than anything, working with my hands to bring a concept into a real, tangible form feels like fulfilling a need. I make art because I have always made art, and I have always made art for the same reasons that I have always eaten, and slept, and satiated every other necessity a human being requires.
If asked to assign myself a role, I would do so with something that feels like a good fit. Something easy to say but not quite as easy to define, with just enough vagueness so as to fit my changing expressions without losing meaning as a word. If asked what I do, however, I would fail entirely to provide a response. I could not describe in words what it is I do, save simply for,
“I create.”
CONTACT ME: solarisrexx@gmail.com
Website designed by Sumi Akamatsu