It’s funny how one thing can lead to another. Sometimes you can’t see an opportunity that’s right in front of your eyes, but if you lead with what you already have, life will show you the way. But you have to take that first step, even if you have no idea where it will lead to. If you’re doing, thinking and connecting with things makes you happy, excited and passionate, life will give you more opportunities to keep going on that path. Same is true if you are putting your mind and energy into things that are negative, the universe will provide more of that instead.
Since I started my path of combining my art with my mission around hearing loss, a lot of really amazing things began to happen. Yes, I got my first art studio, I sold a bunch of artwork, I got featured in many articles, but more importantly, I learned how my art can transform, educate and affect people’s lives. Art is such a powerful medium!
I grew up around many forms of art. My grandma is a painter and sculptor, many in my family are great writers, my dad plays the guitar and my mom was a singer and an artist in the kitchen. Music was very present in my childhood. I often think of the relationship people with different types of hearing loss have with music.
On February I was contacted by a mom of a boy who plays the Trombone. She read my article on Hearing Health Magazine and decided to send me an email. She told me about her son and sent me a couple of pictures of him with his trombone. She purchase a print I have on my store of a little boy with cochlear implants playing the guitar I created for last year’s holiday. She told me she would love to see more artwork based on people wearing hearing devices and playing musical instruments.
I told her she had inspired me and wanted to do a painting based on her son! She hadn’t asked me to and it didn’t matter. Her email got me wanting to portray his love and connection to his trombone.
When I finished, all I could think of is that I wanted to portray more people and their stories. February is a Valentine’s Day month and Cochlear Implant Awareness Day month. A lightbulb moment happened to me right then! It was like I saw something that was right in front of me, but wasn’t really seeing until she sent me that email. I quickly formulated a campaign and asked people in our community to send me their stories and pictures of people with cochlear implants who play musical instruments. The month of February was going by fast and I received a few submissions. It wasn’t many, but it was something of a start.
Around the same time, I met this awesome girl who used to play the violin when she was younger. I asked her dad for a photo and once again I felt the urge to paint that special moment in her life.
This is what my art has become all about: portraying the stories of people of various types of hearing loss, honoring their journey and their uniqueness. This was the mission behind my art all along, it just takes time to really shape the way to go about it. We don’t have to wait until we have it all figure it out to start. The only way to get to a system that works for your business is to start even if you’re not feeling like you’re ready. Because guess what? You’ll never be 100% ready! It’s just how it is. Once you realize that the fun is in the process of trying to get to where you want to be, you become more present with your art. With your life.
The Trombone player’s mom loved the painting so much, she decided to purchase it. This is what she said:
“We received The Trombonist piece, and it is spectacular! We let our son open it from the shipping box, and he was amazed and touched with the likeness. He asked many questions about how the artist came to know about him in order to create this work of art. He and his brother were surprised to learn that you and your son have different types of hearing loss and even wear different types of implant devices.
The whole family was really delighted by the 3D effects of the cold porcelain. My youngest has quite the engineering mind, and was amazed by the 3D cochlear implant, commenting that it looked like it was “so perfect and so real”. My husband loves the colors and the intensity of the piece, which I also love. He remarked on the fingers of the left land holding the trombone close to the face, and the precision and immediacy of that. Very special to me, is the 3D effect of the little angel wing coming from the outer ear. 🙂 I just love the sweetness and specialness of that juxtaposed with the drama of the face, hair, body. Thank you so much for sharing your talents!”
Final Paintings from Campaign #1:
“Cochlear Implants and Music”
“The Trombone Player” – by Priscila Soares
“The Violin Player” – by Priscila Soares
