The Transition to a new neighborhood, even a new state and a whole new way of living was really beginning to impact me. I found myself lost in a sea of people. New York City was not at all what I anticipated it to be. Wasn't New York City suppose to be like Seinfeld, or even Friends. Needless to say, it was not. Instead, it was always a game of hurry up and wait, encompassed by the masses, all the while everyone stayed plugged into their own little world.
During my first year of life in New York City, I found myself becoming more and more introverted. Spending time alone creating, reflecting and trying to work up the courage to leave my house. This time alone was good and at times refreshing but it often left me wanting. The creative process for me, never feels complete until it is shared. All the reflections and Art pieces made in my time of isolation felt incomplete. They were beautiful and meaningful to me but something was missing. I even found that my creativity began waining. And there was a stirring inside me that seemed to be calling me out.
My one year anniversary in New York City soon came and my family moved to a new neighborhood, Within the first few weeks of being in this new neighborhood, a family gifted me with a camera. I was baby sitting for them, with the goal to save money for a camera and little did I know that they had the very model that I wanted to buy! Upon receiving this gift, I was blown away by their generosity and felt a new sense of creative excitement and desire to put their generosity to good use.
The lens soon became a window into the neighborhood I was living, propelling me out. I found a hidden courage to engage and interact with the masses that surrounded me and in those interactions began to see them as individuals, as people with a story; a life filled with joys and struggles of their own. English was not the first language of many of my neighbors but that did not stop me from engaging them and both of us trying to share a piece of ourselves.
Days turned into weeks and weeks into months, my photography walks connected me to the heartbeat of my community and even more profoundly helped me to discover my own heartbeat. As a Creative, it is never just about making art but more importantly about living life through the imaginative ways He made me. He created me as an Artist Imaginative Expressive Image Bearer of Himself-for the sake of having relationship(s) with and through me- relationships that bear out the beauty and virtue of Himself. He wants to glorify Himself through the imaginative ways he has created me!
It is about doing life not arts because as I 'do life,' as an Artistic Imaginative Expressive Image Bearer, Art will be created and art calls out creativity in every heart.
