There’s an art academy in Jakarta.
It’s now in a grey building, narrow and tall. A little antithetical to a place that harbours little artists’ thoughts and literal buckets of paint. It didn’t always use to be in a grey box.
Imagine a low ceilinged house, its wood dark but warm. In the house there are beads, there are seashells, and there are children sat around low tables, drawing away. An old parrot squawks away in a pewter cage in the front yard. At 5 years old I would toddle in with my mum, excited to draw yet another seascape with janky looking mermaids (I lie, they were beautiful). I’d run past the parrot because he scared me - I didn’t know why he could talk.
I didn’t like colouring in with crayons, but I did like watercolour. And at age 11, I first started using acrylic paint and I fell in love.
It was my favourite thing in the world. I didn’t learn too much theoretical stuff. Colour theory and anatomy is still something I’m studying to this day. But art was always an outlet for me - I could always keep myself entertained if I had something to draw on.
So being an ‘artist’ was always a given for me. I wanted to become a painter, move to Europe and open up my own studio. Maybe I could wear big boxy shirts with the sleeves rolled up haphazardly, wear a beret or two. And then the International Baccalaureate happened.
I’m kidding, I can’t really blame the IB for ruining my dreams to become a full time artist. I was severely depressed, severely burnt out and just downright miserable at 17. All I could make were (subjectively) ugly things* and my teacher hated them. I just didn’t want to make anything anymore.
What I felt then, was grief. Art had been my friend since I was five, but something had changed. Maybe it was me, maybe it was her, but it was just not working out.
I went to school for film, one because I didn’t want to be a literature major (jokes on me, I want to teach literature now), two because I couldn’t fully give up on art. Film sounded like a mix of both.
Film school was fun. It felt like scratching an itch I didn’t know existed in a crevice of my brain - I learned to write with intention, I learned how powerful and frustrating video editing is, and most of all, I learned about animation.
My school wasn’t specialised in animation by any means (they offered three whole classes), but by my second year of university I was deeply obsessed with it. I had found the missing puzzle piece, the thing that had inherently made me, me. I had grown up being obsessed with animation, only to be struck down by fine-art enthusiasts and traditionalists who scoffed at cartoons and doodles.
But I knew my love for visual storytelling had sparked from Anastasia and The Lion King and Adventure Time and all the ‘silly childrens movies’ that I would soak up from an age as early as three. The answer had been there all along.
*to be frank, the things that I did make were pretty gross. i made a nine-piece painting/sculpture of just skin and wrinkles and flaps. i used liquid latex extensively for the piece, which proved to be helpful for future art department, sfx endeavours in my film degree. everything is connected, y’all.
And so I started making art again.
Digital art was horrifyingly embarrassing to get a handle on. I hadn’t been the most classically trained artist, but I did have a decade’s worth of art experience on my side. With a tablet and pen in hand though, I suddenly felt clumsy and frustrated as I tried to figure out things like line weight and shape language.
But for some reason, it stuck. I didn’t mind getting headaches over technique. I didn’t feel too constrained or limited by the so called ‘rules’ of the medium. There wasn’t really any, from what I saw. Beneath my fingertips my work was vibrant, it was interesting, and it felt meaningful.
I worked on an entirely self produced animated short for my thesis film. It was about a girl in her twenties getting stuck in an elevator with her ex boyfriend, hurtling through an infinite aquarium. I wrote, I did the character and background design, I animated and composited everything.
It took two years to finish the film, from writing the treatment to the final render.
Two YEARS for two MINUTES (and thirty something seconds). Boy, was it a humbling period of my life.
Again, I didn’t go to an animation school. I just liked the medium so much that I basically convinced myself that I could do it, and I did! I fell back into fully immersing myself in art making! With lots of tears in between!
I can say with surety that it was the best decision I ever made.
Is it the most high quality draftsmanship? The smoothest and greatest animation? The most nuanced storytelling? Absolutely not.
Much like this newsletter, it’s the rambly inner workings of my noggin, and there is still much to learn from the process.
But perfection is not, and never will be the goal.
I have something that I love, which so happens to be one of the most difficult interdisciplinary practice I’ve ever encountered. I am more than happy to tackle all the little intricacies and technical knowledge for as long as I want to in this life.
The biggest victory is that I can still draw, and I can still enjoy it.
So here’s a quick sketch from earlier today.
It’s an unhappy clown girl with a hot pink mullet, because I can draw whatever I want, however I want to.
(And I think you should do the same.)
See you next time,
Kim x