Art as a survival skill

We all have something that keeps us here. For me it’s painting, the one thing that quiets everything else.

I don’t often paint for a deep meaning, but to find my balance again. It’s how I move through the noise. How I breathe when I forget how.

There’s a rhythm to it that’s simple, repetitive, steady. The focus it demands pulls me out of my head and back into my body. My thoughts slow down. My hands take over. Everything else slips away. My work doesn’t ask for explanations, it just lets me do what I do until I can make sense of things again. Sometimes hours go by and i realize I've forgotten the rest of the world even exists.

Murals though, they’re a different story. They’re massive, demanding, unpredictable. Sometimes 200 feet long and 60 feet high, every inch shaped by my hands, balance, and breath.

There’s no “undo” button when you’re forty feet up, free handing a line that could shift everything. It’s a mix of control and surrender. Its trusting that the years of work behind you will hold when you need them most.

And doubt always shows up. Every. Single. Time. It tells me it’s too big, that I’m in over my head, that I should’ve chosen something easier. But I’ve learned to keep going anyway. One line, one hour, one wall at a time.

By the time I’m done, sore, sunburned, and covered in paint, I step back and see proof. Proof that I can do things I once thought I couldn’t. That I can start small and finish something huge.

When people see a mural, they see color, shape, maybe a message. What I see is a record of survival. A map of days I didn’t think I’d get through, and evidence that I did anyway.

Art isn’t about escaping life for me. It’s about staying in it. Every layer, every mistake, every late night in the studio or up on a lift is a reminder that I’m still here, still building something out of the mess.

Sometimes painting feels like therapy, though I never call it that. I just know that when I’m high above the ground, wind on my face, hands shaking from the cold or the climb I somehow feel grounded. I feel like myself again.

And I’ve learned something along the way, you don’t have to be an artist to use art as a survival skill. You just have to make something. Write in a journal. Play an instrument. Pot a plant. Build a shelf. Knit a scarf. Do anything that lets your hands remind your heart that you’re still here.

Because the truth is, we all need places to put our pain and if we’re lucky, those places turn into something beautiful.

I don’t paint to escape the world. I paint to stay in it.

And every wall I finish reminds me that survival can be beautiful.