Page 36 - Demo

amateur art will get you nowhere. I always made sure you have the opportunities that I never did growing up, and now all the hard work we’ve put in is paying off.”
—
I am 18. I stare at the mirror, and a face carved with numbers gazes blankly back at me, each test mark, each exam score, each grade on a report card imprinted on me, all that I will ever be seen as.
But I am more than just a book of worthless numbers and grades.
You’ve opened doors of silver and gold and bronze for me, mother, but I believe that in this land of opportunities, there is more than one right door to success. I’m writing to tell you that I’ve taken up the art school scholarship you told me to decline. I choose to open my door, and face more than a world of black and white and grey.
I hold up an acrylic-dipped brush to my reflection, painting over the numbers and grades etched into my skin. Shades of violet, cerise, amethyst-purple and mint-green stretch over the glass, and I watch as I’m surrounded once more by strokes of ocean-blue and burning yellow and rose petal pink, as if I were standing at the heart of an illuminating sunset. I step back and admire my new mirror image, my grinning face framed by a myriad of flowing colours. An indescribable feeling of pure bliss flows through me, just as it did so many years ago, in my very first art class.
Now, I see colours.
Inspired by the photo series Time to tame the tigers? by Saskia WESSELING Image #1 — #9
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