I have received an unexpected message from one of FB friends today: “How lucky you are to be so talented and adored by so many.”
I thought about it for a long time . Lucky, talented and adored – none of the 3 words fit in or seemed right with the way I view myself, or even close people view me.
I don’t think I have ever been lucky, I have never won anything or got anywhere super easy. I got lucky with getting incredible husband, he could have picked any girl, totally lucky he picked me, and also lucky having Tallulah, since I couldn’t get pregnant for years. Other than that – definitely not lucky.
Talented – I don’t believe in talent, since where I started in art was really really bad art, I had no clue, and no special instrument wired into my head to paint just perfectly. It took a good few years for me to paint the way I paint now. I think 98% of professional artists are not talented, they just painted every day for years, so now they are full time artists.
Below yellow one is where I started:
And I am definitely not adored, except once again, by my husband and my daughter. I am quite awkward, shy and intravertive when being not in online world. In person, I don’t have that many friends, and people often find me a bit weird, eccentric, and too straightforward - in a Russian way (we speak what we feel and think). As a result some friendships that I start – fall apart fast. I am also overbearing, as I am constantly consumed by one or the other creative project, and I spill the details of it all over any visitor, and try to get them involved. Often, people just run away. I was not popular in kindergarten, at school or in collage. Luckily not bullied, but definitely not liked.
Online world is a strange surreal world, where things that are on a surface are often just the top layer of you, with some glimpses of who you really are. I think that we are so easily connected through art, because during art making we all get in touch with the essence of ourselves, which is love and forgiveness. Bits of these powerful true essences get spilled into our art and then shown on social media, where it’s so easy to get an impression of that presumably wonderful person, who painted it.
I can assure you I am very human, often annoying, irritable (due to fibro and luck of sleep), meticulous, and I don’t even want to know what my 15 year old step-daughter Luca thinks of me… (“Did you pack your lunch box?!! It’s too late – go to sleep now!!!) lol.
I hope you all have had a wonderful start of the week, and thank you for reading this.
Very lucky, talented and adored (in surreal Alice in wonderland world),
Annie Hamman.
