The Life of a Starving Artist

tony_chu_in_the_crazy_world_by_jamilb-d3hh8i2 — I think it was 5 years ago when I first started reading the comic “Chew” which inspired this drawing. I put it through gimp to color it in just like the artist does for the comic.

I’m really discouraged with my father right now.

This man is upset at me because I didn’t go far with drawing like he visioned. Every time we drive past a mural or see some really nice cartoon in the newspaper, he always says to me, “This is supposed to be you.”

I love art, I like to draw. But if it was really something that was meant for me to do right now than I wouldn’t be at UPS right now. I’d probably be living in a studio apartment in downtown Louisville drawing/painting art for the masses. From a very early age I began drawing on the back of manilla folders and randoms scraps of paper. My mom eventually found some printer paper and I began to draw all over those. Once I started grade school I drew a lot more and loved art class.

My dreams of becoming a cartoonist grew bigger when I was in the 5th grade. I bought a “How to Draw The Simpsons” book, tracing and sketching everything inside of it. From there I started taking note pad paper and created my own comic that I would sell to the other kids in class. My drawing slowed down a little bit when I went to middle school, I can’t say that I entirely stopped drawing, I just did it when I had time. Skateboarding crept into my life and thats all I was doing. I picked drawing up a little more throughout high school creating another comic that I was selling for a dollar. I tried to get into some art classes and discovered the Louisville Cartoonist Society but I never was able to go to any meetings.

(I did try back in 2014 but they have their meetings in a bar and at the time I was only 20 so when I tried to sneak in some guy caught me and card checked me. That fucking bastard)

Ever since then I have been on and off with my art. I draw here and there, usually on the back of notebooks. I have a few sketch books but I haven’t taken the time to get them out and draw something. Art has always been in my life and it will continue too. I still have this huge dream of having my own weekly comic in the newspaper.

At this point in my life though, I just want to skateboard, write, create music, and just read. If anything, Art was the door opener exposing me to the other ways of creation. Like this is my purpose in life; I am here to finish off whoever I was in my last life’s goals. Whoever I was in the last life was a very creative person and all of that knowledge is in me. Now here I am trying to figure out what it is that I need to complete. I have an array of tools at my hand, I just got to use them.

So Dad, if becoming a superior poet than then any of the surahs or bible verses out there is my goal, than that is what I will achieve.

ps. This song always inspires me to do better. Bet you didn’t know I listened to them, lol.