Confidart
By Emily Dombrovskaya
In my whole childhood (and I still consider myself a child to some extent), I can only remember two instances of positive feedback for my art. Once, when my fourth grade art teacher, Zhanna Stepanovna, complimented me on the detail with which I had drawn the leaves of a birch tree leaning on an orthodox church, an incredibly Russian scene. And once again, when my grandfather glued a landscape I had sketched to a square of hardboard he found in the house. Needless to say, I am not an advanced or confident visual artist.
But I’ve always loved art. I’m very lucky to have parents who, sacrificing their mental health, took me to many exhibitions as a screaming toddler, trying to leave something bright and beautiful in my head. Still having no visible talent for art, I decided to do the next best thing: become very educated, know and understand art with the sensibility and intuition only known to the artist and myself. In the first chapter of the Great Gatsby Nick Carraway says that the greatest thing you can be is an educated person (wildly paraphrased), and I hold that as the highest truth available in my life.
In the process of learning I’ve become wiser, if only by a little bit, and I’ve realized that some passions are for myself; these passions are worth pursuing. If you walk out into the world naked you can still see a lot before the cops arrest you, but if you live in fear - there will be nothing for the cops to notice. I may not be a wonderful artist, but I’m happy now. I’m taking classes, I’m keeping a journal and I’m not afraid to make a bold piece anymore. The shy pencil-drawn landscapes of my childhood have changed to bizarre, bright body parts, and I can see myself growing up. I think of it as a subtle triumph, growth that spreads into other areas of my life, slowly making me a happy person with a wholesome glow to my aura.
