I’ve always been an artsy kid, always considered myself to be very creative and imaginative. I remember my art teachers wanting me to spend my lunch breaks in their rooms to continue making more art. I would be given an idea and I would run with it, taking a simple assignment and making it into something original and unique. We were told to draw a city skyline, everyone drew houses and skyscrapers; I had globes, triangular and hovering buildings: a city on an alien planet.
Throughout junior high and high school I drew a lot, mostly my favorite comic book characters (Jean Grey/Phoenix, Sailor Moon, Rogue, Lady Death). I knew I wasn’t the best and so I tried my hand at designing beautiful and unique dresses but I refused to learn to sew (sewing machines are terrifying!). So I slowly gave up my dreams of being a comic book artist and realized that if I believed the sewing machine was gonna eat me, I probably wouldn’t make it as a fashion designer either. Giving up on these, I threw myself into being a teenager, working part-time, studying, hanging out with friends, partying, and dating. The only artistic outlet I used then was in my ceramics class and again, I had creative, original, and unique ideas that I was able to execute well.
Fast forward to college and I was doing nothing artistic! I took no art classes in college and I mostly stuck to books and video games in my free-time when I wasn’t studying. Looking back, I’m surprised I survived without doing arts and crafts, I find them so essential now that without a creative outlet I feel… empty? Yes, empty would be the best word to describe it. It is like a form of depression like I’m missing a part of myself.
Thankfully since graduating college, I’ve dedicated a lot of my time to art again, specifically crafts. I began making cards for coworkers for every holiday, big and small and eventually increased to making the cards for family members as well. I taught myself to sew (by hand, I’m still afraid of the sewing machine) and have made Christmas stockings and little hand-sewn creations. I learned needle felting and have stabbed myself so many times making little critters! Also, I have been trying to teach myself crochet but I swear yarn doesn’t like me, I just end up playing with it with my cats. But give me play-doh and I will make you a zoo of animals! Give me materials and a theme and I can make something different and uniquely Nikki.
Regardless of my history with my arts and crafts, painting has not been something I have done a lot of. And yet, I plan on becoming an accomplished painter.
So how did all this painting madness begin? With a dream…
Be Authentic. Be Unique. Be You.
Nikki Page Paintings 