My childhood wasn’t one encouraged to be artistic. Growing up with a single mum and a ‘stepguy’ with drinking problems, later on being married to the wrong person, having children, raising them on my own and all the hard times that come with it.. haven’t allowed me much room for creativity.

From a very young age, I have always felt that I had something in me. Something special that only wanted to come out but I wouldn’t know how or even why I would express it.

Twenty years later I realize that I was waiting for someone to encourage me, to discover me. I feel like I have missed out on so much. That I could have created so many things at that point in my life, and the inability to do so has scarred me. I try to remember what I was feeling and thinking at these different stages of my life but I only get snippets of memories and I don’t think I will ever be able to recapture it the way it was. It wouldn’t feel as authentic. Overthinking it would take the genuineness out of it. I can’t just make myself younger and try to think like I used to think; it was a time and a place and it has now passed. I shouldn’t concentrate on the past. I should concentrate on what I can do now.

It took one person to believe in me. To believe in the smallest idea that was wandering around my mind. It made me confident that I was onto something. It is this confidence that has encouraged more ideas to come through and following up on those ideas has since been like watering fast growing flowers. The more I materialize my ideas, the more new ideas come along. And the more ideas come, well the more I discover and create even more. Then, I became a little more confident to make it official: deciding on being an artist. Not that I became one but I acknowledged that I was creating content for the eyes and the mind. Hence realizing being an artist. A long journey, which eventually led me to GAMA where I learned and witnessed everyone’s unique talents and awesomeness. The love for each other was also very heartwarming. You would think that people who create the same type of art would be jealous or envious, but genuine ones aren’t. They are non-judgemental and supportive all the way. Every piece of creation from our minds could never be the same and the interest of some in the difference of others is real. Looking out for each other was another milestone in my journey and I am so glad that I got to be part of it. Really blessed.

This confidence has been filling my heart with content and it has been a colorful firework of skills and ideas ever since. I have been exploring lots of areas that I would have only dreamt of witnessing before. This has brought so much to my life. It has brought systematic hope in moments of despair or hardship. The thinking process is updated. It has brought me company in moments of loneliness and it keeps bringing strength to my ever growing confidence to express myself in the ways that I love. To stop doing it would be like imprisoning my mind and letting it rot in a dark, cold and lonely cell waiting for its time to come and take it away from this world. I won’t stop because it is what makes me enjoy life a lot more.

Somehow, creating brings me closer to my Creator when I think about all the ways I and everyone else become creative. It makes me thankful and it makes me wonder how on earth can we think, where do our thoughts come from? How come we can look so much alike but think so differently, have different ideas, opinions, creative minds… Our brains are pure diamonds gifted to us. Every idea coming to us is like a light shining from it; we need to capture it, explore it and share it in a generous and loving way to enlighten the world with such beauty.

There is always a need for positive attitude and self-belief in this world. Who knows, you could possess a unique light within you and impact other people’s lives with it. Or even attract like-minded people to you by just showing a part of your art, a part of you. Explore yourself, let your heart speak, you’ll never know until you try.