I am Wessel

I thought a great way to celebrate the opening of my online store would be to paint a mural. Large, in charge, and random as you can get. Definitely not what most people would do, but, I’ve never really been like other people. To explain why would take probably several hundred blog posts...which actually exist spread around the internet. From my Travel blog when I lived in Southeast Asia for 6 years, to the artist blog I maintained for almost a year on Steemit, there are hundreds of thousands of words out there about me. Oh, and all the travel articles I’ve written, hehe. I’m pretty sure bits, no, gobs, will come out as I maintain this new blog of mine.

But, before I drone on too much about other stuff as I tend to do...

Why the hell did I paint stick figures on a wall next to a(n awesome) coffee shop in Boyle Heights? What’s the point? Where did they come from?

Simply put, because I wanted to. I could get pretentious and start weaving some words about the inner struggles that I’m dealing with on a daily basis, that art is the only way I get from day to day, and that these figures represent all the turmoil boiling within my heart and skull, I could pretty much put an emotion to each character....but, all that is on y’all as the viewer. What do you see in it? Why do you think I painted it?

The where did they come from is a pretty simple answer...sort of. They’re an evolution of a feeling. I’m a new artist...sort of, lol. This direction, the physical medium, not digital, is brand new. I mean, I barely new how to draw 10 months ago when I started slapping black acrylic paint on crappy kraft paper. My mind, the way it works, looked to build a framework on which to build ideas. If you’ve ever tried to draw, you know what a painful shitstorm it is to get started.

You’ve got the self-judgement, because we all suck when we start. Unless you’re one of the blessed. I mean, jaw dropping bad for some of us...and I include myself in that. My only leg up was 8 years in commercial photography taught me a lot of secondary creative skills. It takes forever to try and and drown out that crowd of negative voices in your head.

You’ve got judgement from without...because people will look at this stuff, so you’ve got that heaping fear people will hate it...which I guess jumps back to self judgement.

But, where was I again? Oh, yeah, how to draw... What are the simplest forms you could think of if you wanted to draw people? My answer was, stick men. I had to beat down all those voices inside of my own head (and thankfully I have a number of highly supportive very experienced creative friends so I got to avoid the exterior judgement and instead got constructive criticism) and just go with it.

I just kept at it, working with the mindset that I was learning something, and, over time they just evolved into something I really liked. And, other people liked them too. Which is what pushed me forward to build this store, this brand, and thus, paint the mural you saw at the beginning of the post.

It’s still not done. I’ll be finishing up this coming Monday after some input by those friends of mine. But, by god it’s large, in-charge, and all over a wall in what I think is the next arts district of LA.

Coming up to the end of this post and it looks like I’ve avoided most of the pitfalls of the first one.

I do want to state some things up front....because I want to refer back to this and be able to say, ‘from the beginning,’ even though it’s more like, ‘this’ beginning. I’ve had a lot of evolutions as a creative, but, to the things I want to say up front.

I’m raw. I will swear. I will say what is on my mind. I will say some pretty weird stuff sometimes. I am trying to live my life to the fullest, explore myself both as a person as an artist, to the fullest. I smoke marijuana. I’m not shy about it. As someone who is dealing with some hefty depression, it acts as an oasis for me so I can get back on track. If that’s sets off your judgement meter, that’s a-ok with me. You’re allowed to have your opinion, but, please don’t expect me to bow to your expectations or interpretation of how life should be lived.

As always, I think I wrote more than I expected to. Thanks for dropping by, looking at my work, hopefully buying something, and listening.

I hope y’all have a great day!

Come check me out at www.iamwessel.com

UPDATE! FINISHED