The Million Dollar Misprint

My father told my mother I had no talent. I was 16, hiding behind the door, and I believed him for the next 30 years.

Two years later, I walked that route for the first time: from the bus stop by the Youth Center, all the way to the end of Raciborska Street. At the end of it, a few worn steps up, and I was standing in the doorway of the Academy of Fine Arts. That old building, once an officers’ club, full of hidden corners and half-forgotten rooms, was going to be my home for the next five years. I say home because the doors were open to students 24 hours a day. Little did I know, my father’s verdict was still lodged somewhere in my subconscious, waiting.

During those five wonderful years at the academy, I got to throw myself into creativity and design. I explored the nuances of photography, sculpture, 3D design, animation. Strangely enough, I gave drawing and painting a wide berth the whole time. I was fascinated with 3D animation, the birth of the internet and the work of David Carson. Graduating one grade shy of perfect score was a huge accomplishment, but it also felt like an end of an era.

During the next few years I landed a job, moved out of my mother’s place and met the love of my life.

It was a time when the internet was still young, and I was at the top of my game. I wasn’t just creating websites, I was creating animated worlds using everything I’d learned about 3D design and animation. All of it built in Flash, the thing smartphones would kill a few years later without a second thought. Nothing was impossible, and I was spending way more time creating than I was ever paid for. Because financial gratification was just a bonus, I was in my element and that’s all that mattered. I’ll never forget the day one of my projects won Site of the Day on awwwards.com.

Until the moment smartphones walked onto the stage, and responsive design walked on with them. On one hand, responsive design solved the functionality problem of websites. On the other, it took away all their magic.

I remember sitting at my desk in the attic, looking at my own website on my first phone with a proper big screen, realizing that everything I’d built up until that point would soon be over.

I had no choice but to adapt and start over.

It started slow, but with time and completed projects under my belt, everything started rolling. I was back on my feet again. The websites were good. Clients loved them, and I hated every minute of it, quietly, the way you hate a job you’re too competent to quit.

As an escape, I started drawing icons, and I put my first set online for free download. I couldn’t believe how fast it took off. Chasing every freelancer’s holy grail. Passive income. I started digging deeper, drawing more.

But the subconscious has a twisted nature. Only now do I see it, only now do I realize that back then I lived by the belief that doodling, art, making things without a financial justification was a waste of time. I have to be honest with myself, though, and give myself a little credit, because financially, at that point, I could only rely on myself and my life-and-business partner. I didn’t want to burden my mother, and I hadn’t had contact with my father in years. So it’s no wonder money took up 95% of my attention.

The fact that the icons started selling was a blessing. And I don’t just mean financially: it meant that now, under the alibi of “work,” I could let my need to create loose with a clean conscience. But not everything was as bright as it looked on the surface. The sad truth is the entire time I was doing them, I thought they were crap, and I couldn’t understand why people were buying them. The self-doubt and low self-esteem started rearing their ugly head again.

At that time, I wouldn’t have dared call myself an artist, but I was too busy keeping myself afloat to do anything about it. I still had a dream of becoming one, but it got buried under responsibilities, client work, and soon, serious health struggles.

My body quit before I did. Lyme disease, then a blood clot in my lungs that could’ve killed me. I spent several years just trying to stay alive, and when I came back up for air, everything I’d built was gone. Again.

I spent last year trying to revive my icon design business, to no avail. I know the market has changed and times are tough for everyone, but there was one thing sabotaging my efforts even more. Years of practiced perfectionism started not just slowing down everything I made, but blocking it completely. I had never felt so powerless, so lost. And to make matters worse, all the feelings and beliefs my subconscious had been nursing this whole time finally started to sprout.

I became obsessed with perfectionism, which fueled the cycle of self-abuse. Creating became synonymous with self-doubt and destructive internal monologues. Scrolling social media left me feeling not good enough, convinced that at the ripe age of 45 I’d never catch up. That I would never be good enough.

But I didn’t give up. Somehow. I can’t see myself doing anything else. Funny thing, hitting rock bottom: suddenly you have nothing to lose. And with nothing to lose, you’re free to do whatever. I started reading. Drawing, just for fun, just to practice. I bought access to 21 Draw and started taking intro drawing courses. I went back to posting on my social accounts regularly, despite minimal exposure. And losing followers with each new post. Yes. Losing. You read that right.

After therapy and enough reading, I finally knew what I needed to do. I needed to give that 16-year-old me what her father took away that day. Support.

I picked up my journal and started writing good things about myself. Things I didn’t believe, by any means. In fact, I was writing the exact opposite of what I truly thought. But it forced me to see a person in myself who doesn’t deserve that hate, who deserves love, and compassion, and patience, and cheering up. And that, my friends, was my point of no return.

Because once I saw a real person in me, I couldn’t keep hating her.

Turns out, all that time I was looking for permission to be an artist, but I was looking in all the wrong places. I was looking outside, and I needed it from myself the entire time.

A few months ago I started learning linocut. I’ve got two whole tiny editions under my belt now. I took one of my misprints, double-exposed yet somehow underprinted, blurry and patchy, and instead of trashing it, I framed it and hung it in the center of my wall, right in front of me. I even put a price tag on it: 1 million dollars. Silly, maybe. But it’s mine, and for once, that’s enough.