Art

I know majority of my website is dedicated to just how much I love piano, but actually before piano, I had a period of time where I thought instead, art was my passion . And actually I think going through the whole motion with art really helped me grow as a person and shaped who I am today.

The Beginning

Unlike piano, art has no place in Asian tiger parenting. They will push you to practice piano, but they will not push you to practice drawing. I did have an interest in art growing up, but it wasn't even like a hobby. Since my big interest at the time was programming, I kinda bought into the idea that well I have a math/science brain (and hey I literally have a math degree ) = didn't have the art/creative brain. In another word, I believed I have no talent at art, and that art is simply not a path for me.

I went through life accomplishing what a typical Asian parent expected of their child. I should be proud, and in fact, my parents ARE proud — they told me they were proud of me on the day of my graduation, which was something I have worked so, so, so hard in my entire life to hear. And yet, while I was proud and happy to hear that my parents were proud of me, that feeling didn't last long. "Yes I did it" quickly turned into "Now what?". I have worked so hard to get to this point, what do I do now?

I was quite lost for the next 2 years. I didn't have a purpose, my day to day was just work, play video games, eat, sleep, repeat. I did try various things and piano did make it back into my life at this point, but it was still on and off and nothing really stuck. Then by pure chance, sometime around October/November of 2021, I happened to learn about QinniArt, an artist who died young from cancer. Her art contains so much raw emotion of struggling to happiness knowing the end is near and it really resonated with me. I was already feeling lost in life and even borderline casually suicidal, and seeing her continue to draw, pouring her pain and problems into powerful art really inspired me. Maybe, just maybe, if I learn to draw, I too can find a way to cope with my depression.

So for the first time in my life, I decided something for myself. I want to learn to draw

The Grind

By pure chance, a couple months later the anime Blue Period came out. I don't want to spoil too much, but it's a story about someone who's academically smart who also didn't think he had talent for art. One day he found a painting that really inspired him and basically turned him into an art major. I brought up that he's academically smart because it draws a parallel between talent and smart — people tell him he's smart, but they don't see the effort he put in to study to get the grades he did. And when he called someone else talented, well… let me put the panel here:

This scene made me realize that I was just… using "talent" as an excuse not to try. Yeah I had already started learning to draw at this time, but in the back of my head I was still feeling like "Okay I don't have talent for it, I suck". And just like him, I became very inspired. You know what, yeah — talent doesn't matter! I should just try my best and see how far I get

For the next 3–4 months, I started learning to draw very seriously. I would practice 2–3 hours every single day on weekdays and up to 5–7 hours on weekends . Art was really my passion. I never wanted to be so good at something so badly — I started taking lessons, online art classes, joining forums to post my art and get critique, even paying for 1-on-1 instructors. For a while I really did feel like I was happy, and that I had found my passion in life… until the burnout kicked in

The Fall Out

Art is hard, really really hard. The better I got, the more I realized just how much there was to learn: perspective, anatomy, color theory, gestures, composition… SO MANY THINGS . What I thought was my passion became something that tormented me. I couldn't just draw for fun anymore. Everything had a purpose. 30-second gesture drawings. 5-minute life studies. Timers . Practice schedules. Critiques. Every drawing became another thing to optimize. Anything not art was a distraction. At some point I did start thinking I was good at art, but I also realized… I was just miserable. I learned to draw to cope with depression and half a year later, I was still just as miserable. Eventually I just… broke and couldn't draw anymore

I wish I could tell you that I recovered from it and continued learning to draw, that I really love art still, but nope. Looking back, I realized I was latching onto art as another thing that would give me self worth , like how accomplishing what my parents wanted for me gave me something to continue on. It didn't matter how much progress I made or how much better I became — I would keep finding new things to put myself down for. When I eventually returned to piano in a much better place in life, I thought a lot about not just my art journey, but also how I tie my self worth to talent (or lack thereof), and how I am willing to sacrifice so much in the name of progress. It isn't to say that I don't attribute how good I am at piano to my self worth — I still do. But I have come to recognize patterns in my behavior, and can actively try to stop myself when I realize I'm spiraling.

The Closure

Maybe one day I might also feel the same way about piano as I do with art, but I can at least say that my relationship with art has improved . Drawing is still not fun, but I have started drawing again. I don't feel strongly about art to be clear — nowadays art is just another tool in my toolbox. I will draw occasionally when I need a decoration for a corner of my house or as a gift for a friend, but it is just… a means to an end for me. I don't really get any enjoyment out of it.

Maybe if I started drawing now in a much different stage of my life, things would have turned out differently, but that's okay — I will take things one step at a time. I don't regret learning art, and despite all I said, learning art taught me a lot. I learned that hard work overcomes talent (not that you can even measure whether you have talent), how much pressure I can handle, but more importantly, how important it is to also enjoy the journey. I truly believe that I only have a healthy relationship with piano now because of my experience with art

Regardless, thank you for reading this far. This page somehow ended up even longer than my piano page, but I wanted to share this story because, more than anything else on this website, I think it's the story that explains how I became the person I am today