class apology

hi. i’d like to apologize to the class please. i lost my way a bit and have been looking in the wrong place for the validation i admittedly, desperately seek as a creative.

the, “air quotes,” “art world” does not see me as worthy of gallery wall space. i am more often than not left off the invited list to “the big art shows.”

i have spent the last 20 years trying to validate and be accepted into this world. i really really wanted it. like a bowl of lucky charms already poured, only to realize the refrigerator is empty of milk, and i am in no mood or state to make a cow juice run.

i am embarrassed to admit that i was climbing a never ending, often broken escalator in a deserted shopping mall, attempting to reach the next floor - not really knowing why i had even snaked through the parking lot and walked my tired legs inside.

i have grown bitter. my skeptical side was the number one seed in the tournament.

but, that is just the middle part of my story.

i am actively, daily, choosing to define myself as an artist in the way i have urged others to. i am artistic in how i create and follow my own way of doing things. my canvas. my texture. my colors. my words. my way of showing the world.

i’m kent, and i am human. i am on a mission to solve your confidence problem with love, words of affirmation, and fuel for you, the underdog.

things may look simpler around here. i’m using the filter that pushed me to compose color and compliment with words even before i gathered the small amount of confidence to share my work from the very beginning.

i will worry less about finding the famous and known to satisfy my validation needs. i will spend more time on ways to encourage and remind you that you got this, that opportunity hides vigilantly behind hard damn work - and that the best gift you can give yourself is to find out what happens when you don’t give up.

go. i’m with you. you got this.

we got this.

tell me. . . what is in your way to finding out?

-kent