My journey down the road of art was an unexpected detour, where somwhere along the line, my brother and I swtiched lives. He currenly lives the life of a happy family man, having the children I always dreamed of having, while I, I am still quite single, living in a little cabin in the middle of a rainforrest canyon and creating the art that he was destined for.
So how exactly did this come about?
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Lets flashback over ten years ago now. My brother was the artist. He had always been the artist. I was the writer. We had our roles and they didn't compete with each other so everything was fine. There was no sibling rivalry, no competions; he stayed out of my realm and I stayed out of his. Everything was smooth and confict free.... until one night, one laundry load, and one thankyou present.
It was a small incident in itself. The brother needed a load of laundry done but was heading out so didn't have time to do it. I offered, saying some ridicullous thing I wanted in return, without actually expecting anything. we were one of those oddly close siblings that didn't mind doing favors for each other. So I did the laundry and thought nothing of it. The next day the brother came home and dropped a paper package on my lap saying simply, "For doing my laundry." What was in it was a good quality sketchbook and a special pack of colored pencils.With one stroke of color on paper I was I fell in love and entered his realm of art.
That had been nearly ten years when the next big even occured. For the previous ten years art had cosntantly been on life's back burner, a simple hobby as I college hoped, studying english, then history, then finally office administration, and not being able to find anything that stuck. I wrote and published a novel, started writing a column for the local paper, but at the end it all I found myself sitting in the local coffee shop with my mother, feeling completly lost in my own life. At the time I was working a dead end cleaning job, was having no luck finding work in the office administration I was trained in, and was frankly, bored to death. As I was talking about my plight I was also viewing all of the artwork displayed on the wall..and as I did eyes suddenly stopped on one piece in particular; a unique mixed media piece. It caught my attention so thoroughy thatI had to stand up and get a closer look. Standing there, surrounded my local artistans, it all clunked into place. This was what I wanted to do, this was what was misssing and most imporstant, this was who I *was*. Buried under my approved role of ramily writer was, in reality, an artist.
That same afternoon I went home, tore apart my apartment, turning my livingroom into a bachelor suite and the bedroom inot a full art studio. Three months later, at that same coffee shop, I had my first art display. For the last nearly four year I have walked what was meant to be my brothers path, while and he has walked mine, with two beautiful daughteres to show for it. I think we both ended up okay.
