On the last day of July this year, I attended the Art as Essential to Survival: Healing through the Arts Workshop, one of the dialogues at the first ever Modern and Contemporary Art Festival (MoCAF).

Last March 25 and 26, I joined the Summer Create run of BGC Art Mart at the BGC Arts Center. It was my first time again to join an in-person art fair after two years, so I was a little bit wary again of interacting with people. There’s the risk still always of getting infected. But safety protocols were placed as always for everybody’s safety!

“Bonnie! Bonnie!”

I kept calling Bonnie within our vicinity. I checked the usual places she’d be in—the bushes, under the car, in the trellis—but to no avail.

I’ve always thought that the word confidence wasn’t good. Being confident wasn’t something that I aspired to be, because I thought that if I were more confident, then it would make me arrogant and full of myself.

During the last days of the year, in our living room with the warm light pouring in the from the window, I sat on a white chair before a small working table. I laid out a sheet of paper towel on it, brought out the air dry terracotta clay we bought months ago that I never got to use immediately, and began kneading it, molding it, trying to discover what creature was inside the clay, what it would become in my hands.

And just this afternoon, I finished my annual report for my venture into becoming a full-time artist.

Because I want my art to be centered on something good and true and for me to not get sidetracked doing things that God would not want me to do, I decided to write a Personal Mission as an Artist.

After I greeted her and encouraged her to chase her dreams, she told me to do so too, along with these words that helped me see the relationship between our life and our art:

“Your work tells a lot about your journey.”