How To Be An Artistic Legend (A Personal Story)
“The Brush is Mightier Than The Sword!”
Christina Jayne 2019
One thing I have learnt from starting my career as a professional artist is that it’s not just about the painting… It's also about the story behind it!
… That has been a journey of self discovery for me as an artist!… I’ve never been a person to open up or put myself out there… I have always been a very quiet person. So, with a huge amount of inner courage… and joy… I share this personal story with you!...
What Are Legends Made of?
Like many of us growing up, I would admire artists or musicians. They were legends to me… my idols! They seemed so confident and at easy with everything! I would imagine what kind of person they must be and I always wanted to be that!... but it was always an impossible standard! …Growing up I felt awkward, unattractive and unintelligent. Even amongst my class mates I didn’t feel good enough. The smart kids seemed to look down on me, and the cool kids… It kind of just seemed like I was invisible to them. I was advised to just try and be more confident, as though I was lacking in something!… I tried, yet I felt like a complete failure at everything… I was the perfect quiet, shy target for bullies too.
“...He has chosen exile” -JRR Tolkien
I’ve had agoraphobia and depression for many years, and I haven’t worked in total for more than about 8 months in my life…
Being “me” has been difficult for me. It has always felt like the personality I was given wasn’t mine… I found I often made choices in life that were based on what I thought was normal or what everyone else seemed to be ok with… Somehow it didn't seem to occur to me that it mattered if I was happy or if it was what I wanted or not.
I spent two years of my life almost completely mute due to how I was feeling… The times in my life when I did try to socialize I would always feel so uncomfortable making small-talk with people. Feeling if I tried to begin to express myself authentically I would be horribly rejected. There is only so much someone can ask you about yourself before it touches on something too painful and personal to talk about... A lot of the time I never felt connected to other people because I felt I could only share about 10% of who I am before I started to feel too much shame or just didn’t know how to answer questions about myself…
At times though, I would really try to push myself to do something new in my life. Such as an interesting career path, hobby or passion that I had never tried before... I would take up social groups or do volunteer work. I hoped to meet like-minded people… People that I could hope to discover myself with and hope to be myself with… Sometimes I felt connected, even just the tiniest amount… but I never learnt how to have healthy boundaries and I would suddenly find myself overwhelmed with joy and excitement at having found a connection that I was often taken advantage of by dangerous or unavailable people… Resulting in me returning back to my agoraphobia… Crashing back to the beginning again!... I think I was looking for a quick fix to escape my loneliness and pain… It never worked!
A lot of my time I have not known how to find an outlet for my emotions… Holding in my joys and my pain, keeping them a secret…So much that my whole self felt like a secret! … That I felt like I didn’t exist at times… but still, somewhere inside… for an unknown reason… I felt hope… and I had no choice but to be with myself… The last person I wanted to be with!
“Disappear into The Mountains” Christina Jayne 2005
“What is the measure of a soul that walks unseen, a heart that carries the weight of the world unspoken? In the ancient weave of Middle Earth where mountains stand as sentinels of forgotten vows and rivers sing of joys long lost, there moves a figure cloaked in shadow. His steps acquit him to a hope that burns beneath the stars…
Aragon Son of Ara Thorn heir of Visel Door was no mere man, no simple hero destined for songs of triumph. He was a wonderer, a bearer of burdens, a keeper of promises etched in blood and time. His paths of exile were not roads to glory but trails of trial where fear whispered in the wind.
Legacy pressed like stone upon his shoulders and silence taught truths no voice could speak. To follow him is to ask what does it mean to hold a light that none may see, to guard a truth that none may know. Let us walk with him not as seekers of crowns, but as pilgrims tracing the edges of a mystery.
For in his journey we may find the fragile fierce pulse of our own becoming.” -JRR Tolkien
“You’ll Never Amount to Anything!”
When I was a young teenager my parents divorced. I never enjoyed school, I struggled with my work … I thought that I was just not trying hard enough at everything. I thought that all the anxiety that I was feeling each day was me just being too sensitive… I would rather look out the window and watch the birds than listen to the teacher!… At home I would write stories about fantasy worlds and invent characters. I dreamt of one day being able to create amazing music or art! I went on bike rides with friends and I played with my toys and crafts, I watched films and listened to music. I used to love visiting places like old castles, where I would run around all the walls and corridors, up spiral staircases into towers!
As exams approached I was terrified about going out into the world to work and I didn’t know what or if I even wanted to study either…
There was an open evening at my school for parents and pupils about further education and courses at the school… I remember that evening getting ready to go, feeling particularly anxious about seeing the other kids from my class. The pressure to have cool clothes felt too high when everyone was normally seen in uniform. I didn’t know what to wear and I kept repeatedly changing my clothes and brushing my hair… Until I eventually decided it was too much… I didn't want to go.
When my father arrived at the house to drive me and my mother there I told them I had a headache and asked to stay at home… In response to that my father acted violently… I started to cry… My parents told me how important my education was and said that I had to go!… I dreaded the horrifying humiliation of arriving at school and all my classmates seeing me a mess with my face red from crying!… In the car on the way to school I screamed and begged them to not take me… I had always been very quiet and never stood up to my parents… and this made them even more angry!... After arriving at the school my father was violent again... Then they both marched me into the school and down the corridor… I escaped and ran into the girls toilets and locked myself in the cubicle… But my mother came after me and spoke to me through the door… She spoke to me in a way that felt like she regretted that I existed.
She eventually gave up and decided to take me back to the car. She and my father continued back into the school… Like some sort of punishment I sat alone in the dark, crying… Looking in through the bright school window at my other class mates with their parents… I wished so much I could be like them!... When my parents returned I just sat there and cried as they continued to talk to me about my “disappointing behaviour” and lack of responsibility about my education. “Why couldn’t I just be like my school friends?” they said… The following weekend my mother sent me to my fathers house alone even though I didn’t want to go!…
We never spoke about any of it again and life went back to normal… I think that was a point in my life when the belief was embedded into me that I was never going to be good at anything…
The End…? Maybe… Maybe not!
Sometimes it has seemed impossible… but I have started slowly, day by day, one at a time picking away at that tightly tangled ball of string of finding myself… and slowly it has unraveled more and more!
… And now, here in the beautiful English Lakelands. I’m starting to turn my art into my own business!... And I’m so happy and proud to be doing this!
I think it’s our courage and it’s our sincerity that beats confidence any day!...
…And that’s what makes us legends!⚔️
