Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Naina Pati. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Naina, appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.
The projects that are the most meaningful to me are the ones I like to call projects of passion. These projects are not planned. They occur after the moon rises, when emotions take over me and I can’t stop myself from creating, whether it’s a painting, digital art, or writing prose. I stay up for hours hunched over my canvas until I’m satisfied with what I see, or too tired to understand what I see.
The most meaningful project to me has been a project of passion – a painting called, “The Hustle.” I made this painting when we were still reeling from the pandemic. After one of the hardest things I’ve ever done – resigning from my job as a teacher. Being a teacher was one of the best things that happened to me. I loved my students and felt like I was doing something good every day, even when the day wasn’t particularly good to me. I still remember the joy of being in a room full of 9th graders who were excited about biology. And the pride I felt when my seniors successfully participated in a Socratic seminar. Every day, I was fascinated by what my students could do with their creativity, intelligence, and excitement. I loved the work I did, I loved it so much that I didn’t realize how much of it I did. After my resignation, when I had time to reflect, I realized I had been working eighty-hour weeks, that my mental health had significantly declined, and that I was utterly exhausted. Burnt to a crisp, moments from ashes. From that realization, came a painting I made on a whim, a painting of passion. One day at 9 PM, overcome with emotion, I grabbed my acrylics, brushes, and canvas, and started without thinking about where or when I would end. The painting I call “The Hustle” features six white circles in the foreground of a blurry, mix of colors. The circles are me, and people like me, human beings, standing still, while the world moves around them in a whirlwind. The circles feel stuck, they feel unimportant and depressed because they aren’t moving as fast as those around them. They are frustrated, because why should they have to move so fast? Why should they have to move at all? The circles, for once, they want to be still. So, they are. At last, in that instant, I was still.
I’ve come a long way from the moments I spent with that painting. Those moments taught me so much. They taught me to slow down sometimes, and that I don’t always need to be sprinting. They taught me to be happy with myself, where I am and how I am. That’s the thing about projects of passion. They are an unplanned release-and-capture of emotion. And when you capture that emotion, see it, study it, analyze it – that’s what catalyzes your growth.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
I’m in my late twenties and love my life. I live with my partner and the sweetest orange cat in an apartment full of books. I get to eat Indian food whenever I choose and watch horror movies about creepy dolls. My ideal morning routine involves coffee and a book, but my true morning routine is rolling out of bed and zombie-marching to my desk. My favorite movie, since childhood, has been Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (aka DDLJ) and I will watch it no matter what mood I’m in. I am very proud of the life I have built these past few years.
During the day, I work from home in the education field. But in my free time, I write and create art. Art has always been a way to incite peace in my life. When I draw or paint, I can feel my emotions being released. It’s cathartic. I got into the world of art through amazing teachers and professors. While getting my minor in art at college, I learned drawing, painting, and graphic design. Currently, I used tutorials to learn digital art. This has been a way for me to carve out time for myself in my schedule. It helps me relax and recharge.
In every aspect of my life, I strive to lead with kindness. I’ve learned that when you show up with kindness, that is reflected back onto you. But it took me a long time to learn that I need to show that kindness to myself as well. For many years, I felt like I could only create if other people liked my art. If they didn’t, then my art wasn’t good enough and I wasn’t a good artist. I shouldn’t even be creating art. But the truth is, that I love to make art and I want to do it for me. And that’s a good enough reason to do it. I use art to show myself the kindness I can so easily give to others. And that gives me peace.
Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?
I am a dreamer who has nightmares. And my nightmares pull me from my dreams. For years, I feared I could never have the things I desired – a life of peace, a satisfaction with myself, a love for myself. During that time, my drive was to capture my nightmares and send them out of me, in hopes that I would see my dreams again. But I now realize that’s the wrong perspective for me.
One of my professors once told the class that the brain naturally focuses on the negativity in life. It’s trying to protect you from outside dangers, so it remembers the threats more than the laughs. It remembers the screams more than the peace. It remembers other people’s faults more than their kindness. To be our best selves, we must actively train our brains to notice and remember the good in life.
I can take that a step further and say that as we train our brains to do this, we become more joyful, more appreciative, more empathetic, and less fearful. We train our brains to not only live in the moment but to enjoy it. I believe that something like that can bring people together. Today, that sentiment drives me. Actively working on becoming a better person drives me. It may seem to some that drawing silly cats and two-dimensional valleys is unrelated to this. But for me, it’s fun. It’s something that brings my brain’s focus to the good things in life. When I draw, I am at peace and I remember that feeling. It’s ingrained in me.
What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?
I never used to like my art. No matter how hard I worked, it was never good enough. There was always something wrong with it. Even when I was proud of a piece, if anyone said anything negative, I would start hating it.
When I was in my senior year of high school, my art class had an end-of-the-year art show where we each got to show a gallery of our work. One of my favorite pieces that I’d worked on that year was a colored pencil portrait of a woman ripping her shirt off like Superman. The twist was that instead of a suit with an S on it, underneath was her bare skin with a large, thick, bloody S carved into it. It represented the burden that women were put under due to media from the unrealistic body image expectations to the dictation of how we should dress. Even superheroes weren’t immune to this. Through the project, I realized how media impacted my own perception of my body. And, looking around, I realized how it impacted my friends, also. Carving the S into the woman’s body was my way of showing that these messages from media had been chiseled into us.
In the end, I was proud of the product. When I explained the context of the drawing to one of the adults that came to the show, he laughed and asked, “If it’s about unrealistic body expectations, then why aren’t her boobs bigger?” I gawked. Had I done something wrong? After working so hard, had I ruined the project by giving her breasts that were too small? Just like that, I went from being proud of something to thinking it was ruined because a random man said I made a mistake. And that meant that I wasn’t a good artist.
The lesson here was that my value as an artist, as a person, comes from what others think about me. I still haven’t completely unlearned that lesson. Three years ago, I closed my Etsy storefront because of it. I realized my art was tormenting me because I had attached my value to how many sales I was making. I was putting my value as a person in the hands of others, again.
I finally realized how toxic that was for me. I made an active decision to focus on making art for me, and only me. Now, when I see my art, I think about the work I did and the happiness it gave me. Now, when I see my art, I like it, even if nobody else does. I still have some work to do, but at least now I know that my value is not dependent on anybody else’s judgment.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: @npati.arts
Image Credits
Naina Pati