YoungArts

If you’ve ever taken a tap class, you know the basic exercises: shuffles, flaps, toe heels.  To the front, to the side, to the back. Eight times, then four, then two. And so on and so forth. Earlier this year, I was in tap class and I wasn’t doing any of that. I was growling, spitting, sneering and smirking. 

Recently, YoungArts held an event at the Surf Club in Miami Beach and I was asked to demonstrate a fun photo technique known as “Light Painting.” It’s a simple enough process and was actually one of the first lessons I had in photography when I start taking classes.

The debate about the intrinsic value of art and creative experience versus a measurable, quantitative value of the arts in people’s lives has been raging for a long time.  Often, the arts are considered “extra-curricular” and not core subjects for learning or experiences for an elite constituency.

Rain shot off the roof at the Woodstock Byrdcliffe Guild, Artist Housing, where I stayed last Saturday for the Woodstock Film Festival.

“What will this day be to me?
How do I call it?
The day that made me know
That I am a human being.
The day that make me realize
That I am a part of people.
The day I taste chocolate.”

-Ojullu Opiew Ochan,
Ethiopian Gambela refugee.

My newest adventure as a performing artist is being employed by Holland America’s cruise ship Veendam. I am a featured singer in the ship’s resident entertainers.

I think traveling has a delayed effect on artists. Whatever direct influence a new city or country has on the creative process is dwarfed by the profound, long-term change traveling distills. Mark Twain says to sail away from the safe harbor. I think he has a good point, but the fact is, you can’t be at sea your whole life. At some point, you have to choose a port.

Mark Twain, one of America’s all-time most celebrated writers, once reminded us that “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”

Much of my art contains storytelling aspects. So naturally, in my final years of high school, I began to pursue animation. My illustrations often look like a frozen moment in a scene, because that is the way I think ― when I think, I think in full scenes. They play out in my mind like a movie. I have always made cartoons, but they never could express the action, the movement that I wanted my audience to experience.

"Hi there! I'm (so and so). What’s your name?”

“Hey! Nice to meet you! I’m Michael.”

“So you’re an actor, right? What classes are
you taking this quarter?”

“Some theatre courses, macroeconomics, and
multi-variable calculus. What are you taking?”