Life, as we perceive it, is a blank canvas painted by the lives we live. When born, you know nothing, and you are nothing. Once death grabs your soul by the hand and drags it to God knows where, you know nothing; however, you are something. You are the canvas.
I once watched a street interview with Action Bronson, and he said something very profound that stuck with me: “If you don’t have bad tattoos, it’s not real, I have shitty tattoos from West 4th, from The Bronx.” It poses the question: how real is the journey if there are no challenges and imperfections? If I go downstairs and get a glass of water with no issues, you call it an ordinary task not worth any praise; if I go downstairs to get a glass of water but on my way, I fall down the stairs, break my leg, break my fall on a piece of glass and get kidnapped by a dragon but somehow find a way to get my water, it becomes a whole different conversation. Bronson’s tattoos are just the canvas that showcases his journey and his life. The “shitty” he talks about is his human. Unlike other forms of art, painting and drawing are the epitome of human. Free of perfection, misunderstood. It grasps emotion. Anybody can draw like Van Gogh; you get any skilled artist, they can replicate Van Gogh; however, they will never feel what he felt, live how he lived. And when they draw, you are just looking at a blank canvas, a dead human without a soul.
The journey you decide to take and the way you proceed to paint your canvas is yours; own it, take pride in what you’ve built for yourself, and don’t be afraid of imperfection. I find chasing perfect is stupid and not worthwhile, not for the reasons you would think. Not because it’s impossible; rather, I find it not worthwhile because the real, the human, causes intrigue. Take, for example, I write a book with tons of grammatical errors and no direction, but you can tell I put tons of emotion behind it. It is an objectively bad book. That said, if I paint a “bad” painting, however, I put tons of emotion behind it, the painting ends up being a good painting. The beauty of drawing is that you don’t have to be “perfect”; there is no true objective standard on what a painting should be; paintings provoke emotion and thought no matter what it is.
To you, success could be having a big family living on a farm with no worry; to others, it might be having more money than they could ever imagine, living in a big city, driving fancy cars, killing themselves for the pursuit of success. Hell! Success could be to someone working at Walmart, for God’s sake! Just like painting, there is no right or wrong, no objective standard, no good or bad. It is just a representation of what you decide to put on your canvas. And to me that’s what makes drawing so beautiful. I can copy what you write. I can copy an Oscar Wilde novel, writing down word for word what he says, and you would have no clue. To you, you’re just looking at black text slapped onto white paper. However, when it comes to drawing, you can’t copy the soul.
“My friend who was a painter—like, a really incredible artist—I asked him the same question. I was watching him paint one day. I’m like, ‘How do you know when the painting’s done?’ He’s like, ‘I get emotional.’ Like, it took me a minute to understand it, and then I kind of thought about it in relation to what I do. I don’t get emotional, but I know what he meant. Like, as far as, like, it’s the end of a relationship. It’s like, ‘Fuck,’ because you love what you’re doing. Like, this is it. I’m not adding anything else.” — The Alchemist