A long-time avid artist and tech enthusiast born in Dominican Republic and partly raised in the United States. I’m a 21 year old freelance artist, that dabbles with Youtube content creation and social media.
I’m Magz (nickname), a digital illustrator born in Dominican Republic. I wasn’t exactly well-off, I admit. In my early years, I lived at my grandmother’s house where a bunch of family members lived rather close-knit with my grandma, mom, aunts, uncle, and my cousin. It was (and still is) a place with a lot of daily electric outages - it was a poor to low-middle class situation - that also had a lot of fond memories.
I then immigrated to the United States. Life in the united states was very rocky, even going to homeless and battered woman’s shelters at different points of my childhood, as well as having other complications. Even then, I found that I very much loved art since a very young age and still did throughout my time there. I didn’t know if I could make a living off of art or if it was a realistic option, so I thought of it as a hobby and that maybe I should think of being something else for my life career. Not having the same kind of mind-blowing talent I saw from those around me was a bit discouraging as I believed I needed to be that good as early as possible to even think I could be a Real Artist tm, and even then it could only be as a Starving Artist tm. But, I found inspiration in professional artists like Mark Crilley, Sinix, Sycra, Ahmed Aldoori... in different phases of my life that gave me the drive and realization that I could do it and that I could learn and that they, too went through similar doubts.
In fact, I *have* been getting better, more than I even anticipated, funny how that works huh? I’m still on that journey, but I’ve improved so much! I’m back in Dominican Republic and even with my own struggles I want to make learning art as accessible and affordable as I can! I want children, teens, and adults of all ages, of all races, of all economic backgrounds, of all abilities to have an opportunity to learn their passions and express themselves with art if they so wish to. Art was and is a huge part of me, and it can be for others.
I was less confident in myself, no direction, dealing with hardships left and right, but something clicked in me that gave me more of a direction in my life. For me, that was art, to be specific, the things I realized to get better at art and see that I could actually be the kind of artist I wished I could be and that it wouldn’t be a far off dream. I have part of the “tools” to achieve what I want to and improve. Do you aspire to be an artist too?
Let’s express our passions and help each other out!