So I just announced my next show this week. Very excited… it’s something I’ve been wanting to do for a while now, and I just figured well now is the perfect time to do it since I have not technically done a solo art show this year. So before 2023 was up I wanted to go ahead and do a show for myself to mark this moment in my journey as an artist and a person.
I wonder if this seemed like a random choice to paint Pokemon, but it’s just a feeling I’ve had to do it… and if there’s anything I’ve learned is that in life when you get these certain feelings about what you need to do… it’s best that you follow them, even though… no especially if they feel risky. I decided to paint the original 151 pokemon because it is a really important core memory for me enjoying the games and the characters as a child. In many senses, I feel like I’m exiting my young adulthood and entering a new stage… and for some reason both the circumstances in my life and my reflections upon my life so far have all been pointing towards coming to terms with things from my past and trying to understand them from a different perspective.
Part of the growth journey, or “evolving,” if you will, is about shedding old ways and challenging one-held beliefs and perspectives. It takes a lot of work to undo ways you’ve learned to deal with life or view yourself or the world around you… yet it is this same work that is necessary for us to develop further along our path. Recently, I’ve just started to question more and more things about who I am at the core… and why it is that I have certain tendencies towards behaviors, reactions, or patterns. How did this habit arrive here? and who taught it to me? As I venture into uncharted and new areas in my life as a person, is how I’m making decisions informed by who I really am or who I’ve been taught to be?
These are some of the many questions I am asking myself right now about myself and who I would like to become in the next chapter of my life. It’s funny, you think your whole life everything will seem clear at a certain point or after a certain experience, yet what you will find is that life was always and will always be the same… just decision after decision. Part of the overwhelming part is the realization that there are infinite paths to choose, and that you are the only one responsible for the choices that you are making. I believe that the sheer weight of the responsibility of choices is that keeps many people giving up their power to allow someone else to make the choices for them… forging your path is not for the feint of heart. I’m realizing that there is no one who is going to stop me from becoming whatever it is I am going to become…and that’s how it should be I think. It’s no one’s job after a certain point to watch over your shoulder… there are moments in life where you can begin to trust your own experiences and judgments…
In the Pokemon Show, the characters often evolve after great feats or challenges that they had just overcome. I think this is such a beautiful allegory for life… Without the willingness to embark on the heroes journey… to get out there and explore the unknown filled with mystery, danger, and challenges… we may never experience the evolution that follows the great adventure. The last 3 years was a time where I began to realize that a very important moment had come for me in my life… the expression of many years of sewing seeds… all coming together. I’m the only one in my story who understands the depth and intention in which I approached all of this stuff over the last 10 years… and to see it… and the experience my own personal evolution as an artist and person has been nothing short of a roller coaster ride.
But this is all part of the reason I chose Pokemon…as a story about evolution, adventure, and at the end of the day, fun, too. I hope that that part of me who was excited about Pokemon as a kid never dies… and I don’t think it needs to ever. It’s a crucial part of being alive.