If I’m making my life look easy, it’s only so that others might try.
I hope a little girl will see my art and she’ll succeed. That through my trials and tribulations, her path is less cumbersome, that she’ll navigate the art world with decorum and humility and a large dose of self-confidence, because she needs that.
We all need to hear words of encouragement and to be cheered on, from the sidelines. Because truth is, we all struggle in life, all of us. So why can’t we change that and help one another?
I painted this piece because I can’t imagine how hard life must seem for a twelve year old boy of color, living life in America.
Some of our best dreams don’t happen when we’re asleep. Instead, they happen in our wakefulness, when we stretch ourselves and reach goals.
Too often we don’t acknowledge our accomplishments for ourselves. Instead we hope others will notice our content, like a post and pat us on the back & say “Job well done”. But shouldn’t we be doing that for ourselves?
What if we hit the pause button and poke through our years? What if we look through our accomplishments; everything that it took for us to get here, to this point in our lives without overlooking the hard work & determination?
Reviewing the adversity that we had to overcome, as we searched for & discovered our better selves. Why do we forget all that we’ve been through? We need to undo that way of thinking.
Let others fail to acknowledge our achievements, but let us remember & be proud & honor our younger selves and all the past effort it took to get us here.
My first achievement was teaching myself how to ride a bike. I’ve never fully celebrated reaching that goal. It was one of the sweetest feelings 🙂
I’m only remembering now because I was awake when I made this painting.
art #artexhibition #artistssupportartists #technygalleries #artcommunity #femaleartists #bostonartists #dopeart #museumsfromhome
I grew up, wanting to leave home. It seemed restrictive and boring. Nothing exciting ever happened. And it seemed to me, that every bit of joy that I might experience in life lay just beyond my front door.
So I dreamt about the day I’d leave. The years passed slowly, as they do when you’re young, until finally, it just happened. My escape was nothing like the way I had envisioned it. I left home when I was 17 and went away to Minnesota and college.
But then, time started to fly by. I grew up by leaps and bounds and aged. Suddenly, I wanted to go back home. I missed my family. I wanted them to see the woman that I had become and to tell them how right they were about “such-n-such” and how I had applied their wisdom in my life.
So I bought a round-trip ticket back home. It was time. I needed to visit. I needed to see where I had come from, to determine if I had made the right choices and to compare notes for future debates.
So I hurried back to where I had rushed to leave.
There’s a joy in sharing childhood stories with strangers. Life, indeed seems better now. Less painful, with more melancholy, trimmed with nostalgia, and not at all the way I left it.
It’s been a long two weeks, for real. People who know me, haven’t seen me. Close family members who once hugged me, have had to keep a distance. And in all this time…
I haven’t painted. Well, I did paint over a few paintings, in a moment of frantic fury, out of frustration where I didn’t have enough room on the canvas to express my creativity, the paintbrushes took flight & like a raisin in the sun, one of Langston Hughes’ “Dream Deferred”.
And yet, during this same period of gloom, the most fantabulous thing happened, I received an email inviting me to attend an art outing, with a group of artists who were planning to gather in Boston! Wait… what? The email header read:
“Re: Art Openings Boston 1st friday Sept 2nd?”
You cannot possibly imagine my joy when I read that email. Or how elated I was to correspond with other artists’ regarding the order of art openings and the upcoming events. For me it was a unique chance to meet professional artists, not only after a never-ending pandemic but in spite of it, but it was also a chance to be with like-minded souls. People who create work to inspire others & I was there for it all! I was humbled & I was thrilled!
But then life happened & just like that I couldn’t attend. My once bright opportunity passed & that Friday, instead of heading out to meet artists, I was undergoing tests.
So right now, I don’t completely understand why I wasn’t able to attend the wonderful art openings on Sept. 2. but I’m reassured by that night’s success!
Today I will pick up my paint brushes & paint & tomorrow I’ll do everything else!
I will meet artists, I will paint & I will have art showings. Tomorrow💯
“Her Coming Home”
I hope you feel the same, because that’s precisely what tomorrows are for. The world needs to see your work & meet you.
Trust, everyone has hardships, but if we’re lucky, we get to have tomorrow too. So keep going, I’m waiting to meet you🙏🥰
If you’re like me, then you remember playing on the swings.
Pumping your legs and trying to go so high that you could touch the sky. You remember, don’t you? Yeah, you do 🙂
Remember how adults would say that you were too big for the swings, and that you were gonna break it? And then they’d tell you to get up, so the little kids could swing. And you’d look around and there weren’t any little kids in sight. Yeah, you remember. Me too 🙂
On hot summer afternoons, we’d take turns standing up on the seat and swing high, our knees slightly bent, as we arched our body back, as if we were flying! Us catching a breeze.
We had some of our best conversations, our most innovative ideas and arguably our best thoughts while hanging out at the swings.
Even now, all these decades later, I still love swings. You too?
From amateur status to professional, I have had difficulty redefining myself with a name that others have spent decades to become.
“She Named Her Daughter Hope” (courtesy photo)
“She Named Her Daughter Hope” was the first painting I ever sold. It was one of my first paintings to be exhibited. It was also my first showing at Piano Craft Gallery in Boston and their first sale abroad to Scotland.
From my perspective, I’m still the skinny little girl from Dacia Street, who became one of the first female linesman in the City of Boston. I’m always “Techny-Gal” a telecommunications technician, and a Fedex truck driver.
Each step of my journey has been a cause for celebration, commemorated with the proverbial feather in the cap. And in between those achievements, I also became a mother and a wife.
By the time I was 40 years old, the idea of making any new achievements was long behind me, I had so to speak reached my peak. And although I would never live vicariously through my kids, I lived happily for them. They were the center of my world.
For me, becoming a “Stay-At-Home-Mom” was a no-brainer, but it was a decision that effectively put an end to my career, as technology moved up to the clouds without me.
And then the unthinkable happened, the babies that I had so diligently helped to raise, grew up! Which was the whole point of being a parent, until it wasn’t.
In 2017, my kids moved out and left their childhoods behind. The magical memories reverted back to reality, like Cinderella’s carriage, the little treasure box with the painted heart on top, went back to being just some painted popsicle sticks that the girls had glued together.
In our new reality, my husband and I repositioned our chairs. Now we faced away from the stuff they left behind- the lucky rabbit’s foot, the tennis rackets, and a baby doll, who like us, was no longer played with.
“The Empty Nesters”
And I was just coming into my independent new life, when a devastating illness upturned my world. But somehow that burden opened up a new vista and I discovered that I had a hidden talent, that is I could paint. And as quiet as it’s kept, I might’ve never known it existed inside me, had I not become sick.
“She Pretends. Making Positive Out of Negative Spaces”
Since 2020, my work has been invited to sixteen art exhibitions, it’s been featured on a TV show, included in four art catalogs and twice appeared on billboards. And I’m very proud that one painting, temporarily installed in Boston’s historic John Eliot Square has been included in the permanent public art archive, listed by longitude and latitude https://bit.ly/3Cq7Ix4
Somehow I’ve managed to live an ordinary life quite extraordinarily. I call myself artist ❤️
Back in October 2021, I took a virtual art course @nyccritclub 👏💕 (my art presentation.)
This class forever changed my life. It was informative, captivating, and supportive. It helped me understand the nuances of the art world and introduced me to some very talented artists with successful practices.
Invited gallerists shared colorful stories, that were both uplifting and realistic. I learnt so much and when it was over, I began to call myself #Artist
I’m so grateful. Thank you 🙏 ❤️ @hilaryldoyle @catherinehaggarty @brigittemulholland & et al
My greatest take aways from the course:
“Network. Take art classes. Engage with other artists. Show up at art openings & be part of the art community.”
Yes!!!
If you’re interested, open enrollment for @nyccritclub ‘s Fall Classes begins in two days💯
art #artclasses #artistssupportartists #throwbackthursday #ilikeyourworkpodcast #artcommunity #dopeart
Subways have always inspired me. Tethered in one place, I look at the passengers and try to imagine their lives, juxtaposed to my own. We strangers who are intricately connected while traveling underground. Oftentimes my mind wanders, lulled by the clickety-clack of the metal wheels racing along the metal tracks. My body sways unintentionally, until I hear my station being called out. And I make haste to get to the sweaty doors, that like any great opportunity won’t stay open indefinitely.
“She’s Arriving. Right On Time”
A Kodak moment captured without the use of a camera or a Polaroid.
So another exhibition is closing & I’m so honored to have been invited, “Who We Are” at the Loading Dock Gallery in Lowell, MA. On Wednesday a new Landscape exhibition will be opening. It looks awesome! 🙏
As for me, I’ve been moving slowly, but steadily in the art world. And although it hasn’t always appeared apparent, my progress has been steady. I can see it in my earlier pieces, compared next to my current efforts and I’ve gotten better.
Olive Sustenance (2017) “24” x 18”
I always pivot. Endlessly, how could I not? Like most people my confidence wavers, so I change the approach to my work in an effort to prop my self-esteem up.
Questioning everything, because life is a classroom, and because the only stupid question is the one we haven’t asked.
If we’re lucky, there will always be these openings and closings of exhibitions. Society needs art.
It’s a balancing act of emotions, trying not to cry that it’s over, and smiling proudly that this thing happened to me, to actually get to write “Once upon a time I showed my work in Lowell”. What an honor!
In July, three of my works invited to exhibitions completed their showings : Norfolk, Virginia, Newton and Lowell, MA.
This month, two more close: St. Louis, MO and Cambridge, MA.
Crossing the Zakim Bridge in Boston
Still it’s a melancholy time, an ebb & flow. The giving & receiving of quiet moments, spent painting alone. This going… This coming. My art journey continues, ride with me.
DaNice D Marshall TechnyGalleries 