This is Our Time, Our Paintings – A Hmong Woman Artist

I didn’t become an artist until late in life at the age of 43 (this year).  By artist, I mean a painter. Visual artist. Even though in elementary school, I won third place in an art contest and had been told by classmates I can draw by seventh grade all hopes of pursuing art faded away as that year I took an art class in school and we had to learn many rules about art.

I didn’t like the rules because they were hard to follow (for one, I could not draw straight lines correctly in the perspective art assignment/exercise).  So what did I do in seventh grade? I broke away from my artistic journey as a painter. Art was not for me because of the rules.

This year at the age of 43, I have stepped back on the road as an artist. In art, there are no rules. Unlike writing, which I believe there are rules, about punctuation and grammar, for example. With painting the first rule I learned on my artistic journey is that there are no rules. Paint what you want and need to paint. With writing, it is more formative (I am an old-school professional writer, after all! and have to earn a living commercially somehow.)

If someone told me last year that in 2016, I would declare myself a visual artist, I would have said vehemently, “Are you NUTS?”  My husband and children would agree, as “Mommy can’t draw.”  No, I can’t draw, but I can paint. Perhaps not anything someone anyone can recognize, but it comes from deep inside, and I am determined to bring it out on blast.

My twelve-year-old daughter, who is a young artist, has inspired me and given me the courage to pursue art. This is because she creates art everyday; there is no stopping her art. And I have gotten over the fact that the genre she chooses to work with is anime. I no longer fight her about this.

How will I begin this new artistic journey of being a late-in-life artist? I have no idea. All I know is that I have thrown out the rules about what it means to be an artist and how to paint art. All I have before me are my artistic instincts. And I intend to follow them.  Until that moment when I have painted my first work of acrylic art.  Here are images showing the current state of my first acrylic paintings, tentatively titled “Lineage.”

Lineage 1: A Hmong Woman Spiritual Ancestry

Lineage 2: A Hmong Woman Spiritual Ancestry

Here is also what I know about artists – we must embark on many journeys before we can unravel the essence of our art. Whether you are a writer, musician, painter, fashion designer, filmmaker, whatever your medium, have artistic courage.  This is our time, our paintings!

Seek the gorgeous, beautiful colors of life and bring them out of the darkness. You were always meant to be in the light.  This is our time, our paintings!

and like the famous saying by George Eliot,

It’s never too late to be what you might have been.

Question:  Do you have any late-in-life discovery about yourself? 

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