Abby Lu ’22 demonstrates her artistic ability through paper cutting. Photo by Abby Lu.
When I was little, my mother warned me against becoming the swimmer who drowned. She told me, “The swimmer drowned because she overestimated herself. She was overconfident.” For years, I believed the moral of the story was to stray away from arrogance. However, upon further reflection, I realized that it was not the excess, but the lack of confidence that killed the swimmer.
While I’m not the artist whose pencil stabbed her to death, I am still insecure, even when it comes to the thing I love most: art. Even though the pencil didn’t kill me, it did a very good job trying.
I love art. I pride myself in seeing the beauty in anything and everything.
Growing up, my mother, who went to art school, discouraged me from making that decision for myself. Everybody told me that artists did not make money, and that they were not taken seriously by others. They said artists lived a hard life. Because of this, I suppressed my love for art. I tried to pour myself into other pursuits in an attempt to fit a mold too big for my body. When people asked about my interests, I always told them that they were “mathematics, biology, economics…” — fleeting interests that I merely thought sounded good on an application or to the ears of an adult. I was afraid of appearing as the meek artist, someone ostracized from society like my idols: Van Gogh, Utrillo, and Jiang Zhaohe. These people embraced art, yet were repaid with insidious backlashes. They gave themselves to the world, which took advantage of their vulnerability and destroyed them. I was afraid of getting hurt.
When I brought my work to people as a young child, they praised me. I was labeled the “artsy one” in primary school. Sometimes I wondered if that’s the only reason people cared for me at all. What was the point of approbation, of building my hopes and dreams up, only to have them later shattered with lectures of reality and responsibility? It’s like a perfect porcelain pot cracked on the ground. What was the point of perfecting it? My family friends who were professional artists told me to pursue something else when I was young. They told me to stop being childish. “Wait a few more years,” they said. “See if art is your true passion.” They told me not to start early and to think carefully because once I started, there would be no turning back. So, I waited. And I realized that art is my true passion. A few years later, when I went back and told them of my epiphany, they asked me why I didn’t start my pursuit earlier.
“You’re too late,” I was told. The same artists interrogated me and asked me what I was thinking, wasting all that time on other things. In other words, they told me to give up again.
I don’t remember how many sketchbooks I have thrown away out of spite, or how many years I have spent lying, telling myself that maybe art is not for me. I tried to hate art. But no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t. I never once hated the infamous technical drawings. I never once hated art history, nor did I ever find it dull. I loved every crooked line of the picture. To me, everything is a masterpiece.
Even now, as I pick up a pencil, I often set it back down within the second. Fear of incompetence proves stronger than the moment of inspiration. Even so, like so many others, I push through. Van Gogh started painting at the age of 27. I am not too late. I draw for myself, not for the scrutinizing eyes of the public. I wish I had realized this sooner. Even so, I still can’t shake the crippling voices of discouragement from my mind every single time I pull out the sketchbook I carry everywhere with me.
From my own experience with art, I can say this: the pencil did not kill me, though it nearly did. I was not the swimmer to drown from overestimation of ability. Instead, I sank temporarily from the lack of confidence. However, I am not the only one suffering from this particular aching. Here’s to the doubtful: don’t doubt your own ability; there’s nothing much you can do about that. What’s holding you back is most likely your confidence, so don’t be afraid to take that leap into deep water.
