The Art of Arahmynta

I purchased an iPad Pro + Apple Pencil last week and have been diving into the painting app “Procreate.” It’s honestly the biggest step forward in mobile digital painting that I have seen and is the sole reason I was even interested in the tablet.

Here are a couple of sketches of Moon from my fairytale Moon and Crow. I used custom brushes I made in Procreate.

Love,

Decided to post a selfie cause A) besides the self-portrait, I think I literally haven’t posted one on Tumblr before, B) I saw someone else do it first, and C) I had already taken some that I like. Helps that I took off my glasses - I like the way my face looks much better without them.

- Finished Pieces TM are NOT the only works that matter. That half-lined sketch is good. That page of nothing but shapes and doodles is progress. If you’re doing whatever it is that you CAN do that day, you’re doing well

- take. BREAKS. as often as you need to. stop when you gotta. if you try to dig into tomorrow’s spoons to finish something, trust me, you’re going to hate yourself and whatever you’re working on later

- if you really want to, you CAN draw (or paint, or sculpt, or craft etc.) every day

- everything counts. everything. can’t draw for more than 20 minutes today? you drew. less than 5? you drew. take a pencil and draw three different circles on a sticky note. you drew. lay out your arm and trace whatever comes to mind with you finger. everything counts.

- if you drew SOMETHING today, you gained more experience than someone who did not

- draw whatever you want

- reward yourself for it

- don’t get so wrapped up in something that you forget to eat, drink water or sleep please. if you can’t make yourself care about what it does to your body, remember it WILL affect your productivity, which will lead to Bad Times, again, trust me

- you are SOMEONE’S art goals

- your art is good

How to Organise your Commissions

I originally wrote this in response to a post about PoC and people not pronouncing our names correctly, but I decided I want this to be on its own.

Just today I was at a check-in desk and had to give my name. The woman asked “And, I’m afraid to mispronounce this…” My husband chimed in “Arahmynta”, with the typical anglicized pronunciation I use (Air-ah-min-tah). She asked “Is that how it’s pronounced?” And I responded “Well, technically it’s Ah-rrah-meen-tah, but I don’t make people say that.”

And that light-sounding sentence rolled off my tongue so easily, but as I was finishing the sentence I felt a little sad. It’s not the woman’s fault - she was actively trying to allow me to acknowledge my real name, but even then, I felt uncomfortable owning it, because I’m so used to being embarrassed at the difficulty of saying my name.

In my daily life, I go by an anglicized “Mynta”, pronounced Min-tah. But since I was a kid, I wondered how it would feel to actually go by my full first name. I LOVE my name. I love how it’s spelled, I love how it’s pronounced. I think it’s beautiful. I like that it sounds Spanish when I say it. I’ve even, on rarer occasions, thought about going by Sahdirah, my middle name (pronounced Sah-dee-rrah).

I feel like it would maybe make me feel special and unique - maybe more like I’m being fully myself? But when I think about *actually* switching over, it makes me feel like I’m being pretentious. “What, you think you’re EXOTIC now?” I feel like a burden making people *write something longer*, or have to say a longer word. How fucked up is that?

I still like the name Mynta, it’s pretty and casual, but it’s still really a nickname. Since I’m working on getting to a place where I can make a living as a freelance artist, I will need to cultivate some kind of name recognition. “Mynta” works best for that since it’s nice and short, but even that makes me wonder if I’ll get less hits because it sounds too foreign, or because people trying to find me won’t be able to spell it.

I just imagine people typing into Google - “Minta? Minta artist? Minta painting? Why can’t I find it!” And that’s with the short form. How many people are gonna remember how to spell, and be able to find later, “Arahmynta”?

Honestly, I’m not sure why I ever STARTED going by “Mynta”. I remember being Kindergarten age, standing in the doorway to my parents’ bedroom (their dresser was at my eye level), asking my mom how to spell my name, and being taught how to print “MYNTA”. Were my parents already finding people had a hard time saying my name? Was tiny me having a hard time saying/writing it? Did they think it would be easier for me to learn a nickname? Did my nickname come about naturally?

I’ll have to ask my mom, because I honestly don’t know.

I think it’s too late to change now. After anglicized “Mynta”, correctly-pronounced “Arahmynta” feels long and unweildy. Is it weird that my own name feels formal to me now? Because I only get to use it when filling out forms. I don’t want it to be this way, I want to be able to use both in everyday life, but I’m just not sure how.

The only way I can see to have made it okay would be if I was taught to use my full name from the beginning, so that it would feel natural now. But then, what if my easier nickname is what’s allowed me to have other opportunities that I wouldn’t have had with a more difficult name option?

Nor did Joseph McCarthy ever say this, at least to my knowledge. Instead, the quote is adapted from something Belgian King Leopold I wrote to England’s Queen Victoria. He actually wrote, “Dealings with artists, for instance, require great prudence; they are acquainted with all classes of society, and for that very reason dangerous; they are hardly ever satisfied, and when you have too much to do with them, you are sure to have des ennuis.”

In addition to pointing out that artists tend to bring ennui and dissatisfaction to all those who interact with them, Leopold I is famous for turning down the chance to be King of Greece, “fearing that Greece was too politically unstable to remain a viable monarchy.”

Few years ago I was looking at some works of my favourite artists and couldnt even comprehend how they are made. Colors, lightning, workflow - everything seemed so advance my mind was shutting off, just admiring the view but not understanding it.

Now - even if I’m not able to reach their skill or it would take me days - I can analyze and deconstruct all those “impossible” works. I can understand how they use light or color to achieve certain effects and file it for later use.