Often, those who tread off the beaten path are misunderstood or mischaracterized and so we asked folks from the community to reflect and tell us about the times they’ve been misunderstood or mischaracterized.

Rachel Peters

I mean, story of my life. I’ve always had big feelings, being the youngest of five kids, and two wonderful, yet emotionally unavailable, parents. My feelings were, and still are, just a lot, all the time. Growing up in the Mormon Church, all my peers would tell me to just turn to God. I never felt like even God could understand why I always just felt so deeply. There’s not enough time in a day to unpack that, so I started writing. At first, in journals when I was younger, and I would write little stories, as my imagination would take off. I remember learning about poetry in grade school, and I immediately was like “Yes! Finally, something that really captures how I feel!” From then on, I’ve relied on writing poetry as my coping mechanism, and from there, songs. Music has always been the one thing in this world I felt like understood my big emotions. Music can be big, dramatic, loud, and angry! Read more>>

David “drumc” Curby

Being misunderstood in your gift is just part of being unique. When you think of the greats, they all went through it. Their uniqueness challenged the norm, forcing sounds and genres to evolve. But then there’s another side to that—a lot of people choose to misunderstand you. And let’s be real, they probably do understand, but pride or intimidation stops them from admitting it. That’s still tied to your uniqueness though, because deep down, they might want what you have, but it’s yours, not theirs. Read more>>

Adan Munoz

The toughest part of focusing on abstract art is explaining that sometimes they don’t really have “meaning” or represent something concrete. Most of the time I get inspired by music or something around nature, but it’s not necessarily derivative of what we see everyday. Yes there have been some slightly space inspired pieces, but because we only know so much about what’s outside of our place on Earth, those moments are what my mind’s eye created. And those were created by an internal struggle I was going through. They became my own universe where I wanted to be at the time. Away from grief, backstabbing people, overall negativity. Read more>>

Sara Thomas

Being a mainly micro crochet artist is a weird space. There is a human behavior to naturally assume the smaller an object is, the worth you put on it also decreases. However, with micro crochet that isn’t the truth. You are utilizing tools that are microscopic and takes more time to create sometimes than a piece with a larger hook. I’ve learned to take this feedback into my tiny pieces to meet customers in the middle but also become determined to bring these tiny pieces a bigger impact to show their big worth.  Read more>>

Greg Simon

I feel like my work is actually easy to mischaracterize because I occupy something of a peculiar spot in the music world. I’m trained exclusively as a composer of concert music, and I’m a professional jazz performer. This dichotomy is deeply important to me and heavily impacts my musical work, but it also leads to confusion because these two traditions are still relatively segregated. There are absolutely great jazz musicians writing concert music, but they often carry the label of “jazz composer” with them when they enter concert spaces. I’ve never wanted that label for my work, but that hasn’t stopped critics, audience members, and occasionally colleagues from making certain assumptions about it. Read more>>

Paz Sher

My work has been misunderstood many times, particularly since I moved to the U.S., where there is a prevalent approach to understanding that I refuse to set as a goal for my art. Many times, I had this feeling that people look at my work and want to know who I am. However, this is not why I make art for, Even if I think of who I am, I hope I would never have a clear answer. I change, I move, I grow, and I can be many things. I prefer keeping my art (and sometimes myself too) ambiguous and open for possibilities than explicitly defining it into a closed identity. Read more>>