Writing Challenge Day 7

Find your THROUGHLINE

There had to be more, surely? For 20 years, I have been making a lot of people happy with custom artwork and murals. Translating clients' ideas into jaw-dropping visual masterpieces is my superpower. Seeing the clients' faces on reveal day is what I lived for—the aim of the game, my ecstasy. But where am I in all this? Who am I as an artist? What do I have to say? What does that look like?

University would be the answer. I'd become a better painter and receive that all-inspiring piece of paper to increase my credibility, to be more competitive with the fast-growing number of street artists and muralists. I would discover who I am as an artist and find my visual language, expressing how I experience the world. I went in with my mind wide open to receive whatever came on offer and give it my all.

Early into my degree, I had the opportunity to take a sculpting unit. Being a sculptor was my ultimate childhood dream. My curiosity took hold, and I took it! My brushes remained standing in jars on the shelf, unused for the remainder of my degree. It was an exhilarating time, experimenting with materiality, time, place, duration, and processes, using my body as a tool or language to express my newfound conceptual ideas through gesture and performance. A whole new side of me awoke. I wasn't crazy all along. My concepts and ideas are valid. I was given permission to create! I jolted out of the starting blocks like a hungry lion.

The work I was creating starkly contrasted with my commission works. Seeing the two art forms displayed side by side on my social media emphasized this even more. My insecurity started to wonder how this landed on my potential clients' screens. How will they react to seeing this out-there artwork next to my mural portfolio on my socials and website? And also, how are grant officers seeing the murals next to the sculptures and installations that I am applying for funding for? How do I remain professional and not repulse them? This has been on my mind for almost 10 years.

I'd ask my peers, friends, and mentors if I should keep the two art streams separate or together. This dilemma remained unresolved until it recently popped up during an intensive artist incubator program. One of the mentors talked about branding. The first element to establish is your THROUGHLINE—a line that runs through your practice and connects your WHY, brand identity, and personality. No matter how I spun the ruler to connect the dots, I could not see it.

At lunch, I pulled the mentor aside for a chat. Maybe he could help clarify the concept and help me find my throughline. Apparently, I am the throughline in my practice—my skills, ideas, and site-specificity—I am the art and the throughline. I think I sort of see it.

I already had separate social media pages for the mural business and one for the fine art. They seemed to work separately. His explanation gave me enough confidence to build one website displaying the two practices side by side. Having only one website would also save me a lot of time and money. On the landing page in my About section, I attempted to write the justification, I suppose you could call it, of juxtaposing the two very different art disciplines.

The website is far from perfect, but I think it works. I focused on getting my mural portfolio up first since that is my bread and butter. I have shuffled pages around many times, trying to find the proper flow. I am unsure why I am so insecure about showcasing the murals and my fine art practice side by side. I am so proud of both. Why can't they be happy cohabitating in one place without it being weird? I am still not sure about my socials and have kept them separate. Maybe they should be one platform. For now, they’ll stay where they are.