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.

Said Abusaud

To be creative is to be misunderstood. The uneducated and the uninformed people assume you just throw a splash of paint on a wall and call it art. A lack of understanding and any desire to learn more is the biggest problem. It’s often exploring whole new facets of expression beyond just complex representations of physical objects. I find the philosophy behind it can be very interesting even if the art itself is simple. Read more>>

Mike Louis

Sometimes from an outsider’s perspective, DJ’s are classified as button pushers. People think that playing someone else’s music doesn’t require skill or finesse. In reality, the talents of a DJ expand well beyond the execution. We go through hours upon hours of music prep and downloading. We curate playlists for specific atmosphere’s that provide unique experiences (example: hotel pools, lounges, nightclubs, weddings, retail, corporate). Read more>>

Austin Cooper

There’s one specific No Lungs song called “New Devil” that I think is misunderstood and completely understood at the same time. The song is about a manipulative person taking advantage of a girl who she sees as her lover. The lyrics are in first person from this manipulator’s perspective. There’s a line mentioning Galahad, who was a knight at the round table known for being chivalrous, just asserting how his lover sees him as a perfect man, but he is empty and using her. Read more>>

Graham Guest

Back in the nineties, when Moses Guest was a three-piece band (guitar/vocals, bass, and drums), and we were writing distinctively grungy songs, we still got labeled a jam band. I could never understand this. I liked the Grateful Dead but was not a Deadhead, and I really did not like Phish or Widespread Panic. Still, to music writers and a lot of other people, we were a jam band. Ultimately, I realized that the writers and everyone else were right and that it was I who had misunderstood and mischaracterized myself and my own music. Moses Guest, I realized, was some kind of southern jam band at heart, so we – Rick Thompson, James Edwards, Jeremy Horton, and I – just let that inner jam band out, and it was really liberating. Read more>>

Johnny Jackson

Something i have always been told by many people, is that raw passion is first misunderstood. In both worlds I live in, passion and drive are not understood. Whether it be in personal or professional life. My experiences have always started out as “wow, you’re so nice”. It always used to baffle me because i used to think, Damn, ‘was i supposed to be mean? More often than not I finally get an explanation, and it usually starts with usually athletes, or someone who looks like you hasn’t been nice to me in the past. Read more>>

Michelle Nirumandrad

I have to have a quick internal chuckle at this question because YES! Absolutely. All the time. We live in a day and age where people do some pretty crazy things for their chance in the limelight. Captured Sky is easily and often mistaken for one of these half-hearted attempts at entertainment. But the motivus behind Captured Sky has never been about the individual or sensationalism – it is about Sister Sky and a star-crossed Lover’s attempt to draw us closer to her. Read more>>

Tawny Fritzinger

Considering that my work features a lot of mythological beings, such as Lilith and The Morrigan, my work is often mischaracterized or taken the “wrong” way. I have two very distinct examples of this. The first one that comes to mind is the illustration of Lilith I posted along with a tongue-in-cheek caption that said she was the Patron Saint of Wronged Women. This resulted in a lengthy verbal reprimand by a commenter who very clearly had a LOT to say about the Christian faith and how Lilith was an evil entity that should never be celebrated. Read more>>

Spaceship Ohayses

I think I have been misunderstood as a whole. Coming from Flint, Michigan and having the career I have, people tend to think it came easy or I did it for the sole purpose of my gain. Anything I have done, is to uplift others in the same field I am in. I’ve learned that while people tend to only look out for self, they are still reluctant when others want to look out for them. I’ve come to realize to just stay myself. Some people will like me, some people will hate me- but they will never say my character wasn’t consistent. Read more>>

Duane Topping

The interesting thing about my fashion journey is that it began with me shedding my own mischaracterizations of myself. As a US Army Veteran with PTSD, I assumed that’s all I could ever be. I learned that I could be More Than a Label. The depth of who I am could be more than what labels I had assumed I was stuck with. From the onset of my path as a Fashion Designer, I found I wasn’t the only one who didn’t see a fashion designer when looking at me. I tell the story of my very first runway where I was mistaken for the backstage security. Read more>>

Trenise Miller

My modeling career as a whole has been misunderstood. As a plus sized model with a world of confidence, I try to share and teach other women, especially plus sized women, to have the same confidence within themselves. Some people say that I’m glorifying obesity instead of seeing I’m teaching self love no matter what size. If we can’t learn to love ourselves at our worst, regardless of what we classify as being the worst, we will never learn to truly love ourselves at our best. I have learned to take the good and bad with this career but in the end I still depend on me and I will always choose to LOVE MYSELF FIRST. Read more>>

Edgar Rider

Misunderstaood Projects In The Creative Paradox It seems like most of my projects have been somewhat misunderstood and the basic need to be creative has always felt like explaining it to others have always been extremely challenging. I write and perform under two names Edgar Rider and Bob Eager Being a Bob and a Edgar has unintended consequences! Why two personas? Both sides express one half a need and the other one completes it. Read more>>

Ray Gatica

I have never considered myself a traditional artist in the sense that I sat around and simply painted. I consider myself an “Artrepreneur”. I define artreprenur’ as a creative artistic individual who has the same business sense, drive and determination of an ‘entrepreneur.’. Two reasons why the term ‘artrepreneur; came to mind: One is when, Semina DeLarentes, from the Waterbury Arts Council, once wrote on my behalf: ”Ray makes his artwork for him”.. Secondly: Read more>>