Artist - Me Anonymous

Eyes fixed upon the image in front of her, brows slightly furrowed, the girl appeared to be lost in thought. While the others walked on after stopping briefly before the piece, she stood there with her feet glued to the spot. I watched the girl from behind one of the tall white grids on which dozens of frames were suspended in the cafeteria. My eyes traveled from her face to the painting she was looking at, and finally to the tiny card beside it: Title – Colors of Freedom; Media – watercolor and ink; Artist – me.

There hung the painting I had poured my heart into, my very own masterpiece. Smiling to myself, I couldn’t help but feel immensely proud, not because the piece was featured in the school’s senior art show but because I knew that it was entirely and uniquely my own, that I gave life to it and therefore, no matter where it went, it could never be taken from me.

I have loved art for as long as I can remember. My family’s old furniture and my father’s books were my first canvasses, to which the scribbles that cover these objects still attest. When other children abandoned their coloring books for Barbie dolls and baseball bats, I was the one always sitting inside during recess, letting my imagination run wild onto the pages...