Celebrating art can be about letting the art speak for itself, despite the artists internal doubts.
As a writer, I consider what I do to be art, every sentence and turning over of a word a new brush stroke on the page in front of me.
In April 2013, I sat behind the my study desk and instead of scrambling through the never-ending Grade 5 maths homework, I wrote my very first story. It was not planned, the pen just kept going, writer’s block non-existent concept in my head at that point.
What stared back at me in that moment were pages and pages of what I now consider the worst thing to have ever been possibly written in human existence. A story about a girl trying to find herself amid her family’s chaos.
A story I’ve now learnt to partially like or at least, appreciate as a starting point. A story that now sits, cramped in the cupboard with many other pieces. Pieces that have probably long cried out to be heard but have been overshadowed by doubt, fear and many other endless reasons.
Doubt and fear – words that have somehow been ingrained in the minds of artists. Something is just never good enough, interesting enough, anything enough to be shared. It’s this constant battle between the artist and the art itself to be heard.
Your “April 2013” days have long passed now, and like the Grade 5 maths homework, you have to scramble through the very essence of what you do, the very essence of who you are.
To me, celebrating art is about learning to let your work speak for itself in its current state. To let readers, viewers and consumers delve deep in the imperfections of your creations and find beauty in that. It’s about building the trust you have in yourself as an artist and within the work you produce. It’s about attempting to revisit those “April 2013” days.
As a writer, when last did you sit and simply write a piece? When last have you blocked out the thousands of reasons your mind automates that make it ridiculously hard to simply just write? When last have you given your work a platform, a chance, a moment to simply just exist?
For art to be art, it must be born, with or without the doubt, the fear or the endless scrambling. It matters because it speaks. It is its own.
You made them,
Thought by thought,
Dream by dream,
Idea by Idea,
And, yet they still stand,
Waiting for a purpose.
You’ve drawn them from past experiences,
Sculptured them from the very people you know
And dug out of them emotions you fear to dig out of yourself.
They have become your escape,
Your new reality.
Sometimes you hate them,
Sometimes you love them
But most of all you live by them.
You write
And write
And write
Thoughts flow,
Ideas come to paper,
Your face beams
Until suddenly,
It’s all blank.
They come to you every now and then,
Nagging,
Begging,
Whispering their miserable lives on hold.
You made them,
Thought by thought,
Dream by dream,
Idea by idea
And yet through all of this
They still stand,
Waiting for a purpose.
With that being said, I want you to take a moment to breathe life into your art, to remember it has every reason to exist in this current moment.
FEATURED IMAGE: Ofentse Tladi, 2024 Wits Vuvuzela journalist. Photo: File/Leon Sadiki
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