Everyone is an artist. All human beings are born with unlimited creative and artistic ability. It's up to you to find your niche.
How do our artistic abilities develop? Although there is much evidence that we are born with certain talents, the absence of nurturing or cultivating those gifts can mean the difference between fulfilling our full potential or remaining unfulfilled.
"A dream deferred, dries up like a raisin in the sun," said Langston Hughes.
How does a 6 year old boy, who is creating comics discover that he is entrepeneur innately and continue down this path. The answer is one common denominator: Mom. To be more specific, Raheem's mom.
Raheem's mom is a multifaceted creative person & educator. Mom-who affectionately is known as Ms. Jonnie to the educator community, cooks, draws, makes jewelry, crafts with artistry and love.
As an educator to kindergarten students she is someone who can create anything. She's visionary and imaginative and has had the will to create things herself, long before the D-I-Y culture took over the internet.
She taught Raheem how to draw from a young age. He drew a liking to comics after his parents introduced him to comics and drawing. And Raheem took what they instilled and ran with it.
At the age of 10 years old, mom took Raheem to Big Apple Comic-Con in New York, and asked, "How can my son become an entrepreneur?" After sharing her son had been selling comics he created since the age of 6, the person responded to her suprise, "He already is one!"
That moment was life changing.
The seeds that mom, sowed into Raheem's life, had him develop his artistic and entrepreneurial skills and trajectory for his life from a young age. Raheem sold his comics to classmates and built a following, long before the internet grew to its current level of popularity.
As we sat at dinner, laughing talking and connecting prior to Raheem's billboard unveling in Time Square, it was obvious that mom nurtured something in Raheem that otherwise might have lied dormant.
This is the gift that mothers, our first teachers offer to the world.
I lovingly shared, mom was Raheem's first art agent.
Mom as you read this article know that the impact you have made is immeasurable. Mothers reading this article , know that you too have unlimited capacity to impact the pathway of your children's future. As you nurture your children's gifts they too can discover who they really are .
I too owe my mom my world.
I'm Moved as I write this and reflect on the gifts of writing, and creativity my mom supported and instilled in me, and what I've been able to pass on to my own daugter.
Even if you haven't discovered or tapped into your own creativity yet, know it's never too late! And if you have lost your mom, or never were fortunate to cultivate the relationship you wanted with her-give yourself the gift of healing. And know It is never too late to begin to mother yourself.
Love,
Rahisha, Founder No Starving Artists