Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to The Ema. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Hi The, thanks for joining us today. One of our favorite things to hear about is stories around the nicest thing someone has done for someone else – what’s the nicest thing someone has ever done for you?
It is difficult for me to distinguish one instance as the “kindest” thing someone has done for me. I attribute much of who I became as an adult to the countless drops of kindness that form the ocean I experience when reflecting on kindness.
I’ll instead share a recent moment that moved me powerfully that I feel is accessible to your audience and easily imitated.
My wife works with a college readiness program for high school students. She was invited by her job to a conference in Myrtle Beach, SC, for a few days and wanted our two kids and I to accompany her as a vacation. During pandemic she gave birth to my 2-yr old daughter, Caliyah, who was diagnosed with autism; and my 1-yr old son, Shamar. Between childcare costs and general Covid safety, we agreed it was most practical for me to stay home and care for the children while she worked. To keep myself centered and have some sense of productivity, I returned to painting in 2022 after many years away from the art world.
A side-effect of being a stay-at-home parent is that the working parent may come up with ideas and plans without full awareness of the many considerations and logistics that go into dealing with the kids & household from day-to-day. For example, as we arrived and walked into our lovely beachside hotel room, my attention was quickly pulled away from the oceanside view as I noticed the child forehead-level table corners & edges. Naturally, this adult vacation spot hadn’t gone through the same extensive childproofing & safeguarding as our home that affords me time to step away for a sec and create.
These types of things tend to pile up over time into a mountain of frustrations. So, you don’t know which seemingly small straw will be the one to break the camel’s back. In the particular instance at the center of this story, I was pushing our emptied, humongous, wagon-like dual stroller to the parking garage to retrieve a ridiculous amount of items the kids need just to function daily. It then occurred to me as I’m standing in the middle of the multi-level garage that my wife had moved the car. She hadn’t bothered to tell me where to, nor did it cross my mind to ask as I walked out the door saying,
“I’m headed to the car to grab their things,” and her response was simply,
“Ok.”
My wife’s phone is usually in my daughter’s possession as she routinely watches YouTube Kids videos & declines incoming calls, so asking the location of the car is out of the question. I’m tapping the “lock” button on the car key remote over and over so I can attempt to follow the sound of the horn beep it makes. It sounds like it could be on any one of three floors (which usually means it’s parked on the incline between floors and not on an actual floor–lots of fun when pushing a loaded wagon-stroller). Suddenly, I hear a woman call out,
“Are you looking for your car? It’s over here!”
This stranger & her friend played “Marco Polo” with me, calling back & forth until I found the car. I thanked them & we went our separate ways. Just as the small drop of frustration caused by the incident was connected to the sea of similar frustrations that accumulated over the course of nearly 3-yrs, unseen by the casual onlooker, that one small act of unsolicited kindness made me present to the vast kindness that exists in the global human collective existence.
It is often easier to see the ripple effect of a small & short act when that droplet hits a calm surface undisturbed by the waves & choppiness caused by our attachments, feelings, circumstances & memories. I’ve had all the typical “someone gave me a home/food/money” experiences many creatives cite when speaking of kindness in their lives. I’ve endured everything from homelessness, to domestic violence, Hollywood drama, to racism and an arrest due to misguided police profiling.
I instead choose to tell this story because I once heard popular mystic Sadhguru suggest he doesn’t give guidance to the homeless & hungry, he gives them a home & food. He reserves such guidance for those who have more than they really need but, due to their internal experience of life, see themselves as lacking & unable to be of service to those far more needy than themselves.
This instance proves it’s not the size or cost of the kindness that matters, but one’s receptiveness to the ever present opportunity to perceive the world & oneself as kind. My hope is that this inspires your readers to be open to & appreciative of the small things in order to increase their capacity to receive & give greater in the present & future.
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 am known by a few names, but I am The Ema (pronounced “ey-mah”) which is Sanskrit for “The Way” or “The Path”. I’ve been drawing since before I could even walk, so it’s fair to say the visual arts are my base form of expression. That said, I’ve participated in the performing arts, martial arts, unaffiliated ministry, & have been involved in the music industry for 20 years. Underpinning all of it is an innate desire to seek truth and cultivate within myself the keys to bring humanity as a whole to a higher level of realized connectivity through creativity.
I founded the Retconism movement in 2022 as a means to demonstrate the freedom of expression made available by deconstructing the ego & to find unity through a practical relationship with our shared universal origin. I’m currently building a non-profit to make methods associated with this type of development accessible and practical across the board.
My 1st taste of art as an industry was making money to purchase video games by drawing & framing pictures of popular characters then selling to my 4th grade classmates. In high school I made my pocket money by drawing gift portraits for the older girls to whom I helped sell my mom’s Avon products. I supplemented my budding music career in college by designing album/mixtape covers, & eventually experienced my 1st Art Basel after collaborating with funk legend George Clinton & Overton Loyd.
Although I received an International Baccalaureate Art Diploma & graduated from a Fine Arts high school in 2005, I didn’t take a formal interest in fine art until 2022, having instead gone to college for business. The way I saw it, I’ve always known how to create art–I needed to know how to make a living from it!
I initially became re-engaged with art after taking an interest in NFTs in 2021, but discovered I had a genuine interest in art history & the role museums play in controlling the narrative of society. After contracting COVID-19 in mid 2022, my mother (also a painter), suggested I paint to keep my mind preoccupied while healing. After a strange realization during a fever, I had an idea on how to capture forces like time & space on canvas. This led to my current style & unexpected revelations about the nature of reality. I gained insight into the ways ancient cultures & celebrated creators have attempted to transmit this knowledge (often secretly) through art.
I, like my predecessors, embed my work with esoteric knowledge & demonstrate relationships that expand thinking. I gift canvases to museums, famous people & leaders who I feel are steering the global conversation in a positive direction. I sell existing works, but I very rarely do commissions which are of the “paint that because I’m paying you this” variety.
My most unique contribution to both the art world & society in general is diverting from the prevailing conversation of Black art in bypassing the association of our race with American racism & slavery, & tapping into the archetypal role of blackness as the source of creation in the Universe. “Black identity” in America, even at its most positive, is limited by being mostly subjective & memory based. On the other hand, the undeniable link between the blackness present in the carbon produced by combustion like that of the Big Bang, that found in the melanin & substantia nigra that allow all humans to have conscious motor control of our bodies, & the light absorption principles of the color black provide an undeniable scientific basis for understanding the role of dark skin in the formation of advanced intelligence in anatomically modern humans hundreds of thousands of years ago.
It never ceases to amaze me that simple semantics in language evolution through the ages has caused such a diminished understanding of “black” as a concept. It has been used as a means to divide along racial lines as opposed to being used as the evidence needed to prove not only the connection of all humans to each other, but quite possibly the fundamental link between our physical forms & the design of the Universe. I’ve found this to be a foundational element in the ancient teachings of India & some sects of Islam, for example, but completely absent from the prevailing conversations of “Black consciousness” in America & the narratives portrayed in our art.
All in all, I’m proud that, in under a year since returning to painting, my inclusion of these concepts in my work have allowed (among other things) for one of my collections to be placed on permanent display in the local history museum in my hometown of Gifford, FL, & my collaborative work with comic book writer & pioneer Nancy A. Collins is under review with Sotheby’s for inclusion in an auction being spearheaded by the Wu-Tang hip-hop brand.
My hope is to leave a wide reaching legacy through my art & personal cultivation that transforms the conversation on human existence & advances our conscious evolution beyond the confines of our language-projected reality.
Do you think there is something that non-creatives might struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can shed some light?
I think it’s an unfortunate misconception that people think such a concept as “non-creative” actually exists. As part of human nature, we’re always creating something regardless of what walk of life we choose, & only a small percentage of it falls into what we typically think of as “creative”, like painting or music.
The difference between most & those who identify as “creatives” is the personal accountability we take for our creative faculty. Like a tangled jungle, creation gone unchecked & untamed can become inhospitable and block light from reaching the smaller forms of life closer to the ground.
Because certain powerful corporations & individuals aren’t held accountable for what they create in terms of social influence, less aware people relate to many of their misfortunes as happenstance. As someone who personally engineered for myself a reality as part of the Wu-Tang family–all from a couch in GA during a global pandemic–I know how easy it is to shape reality. I’ve worked in sales & have even briefly trained in ninja espionage, so I’m aware of how those with the greatest impact on the mentality of society can use creative language like “advertising” to influence human behavior in a manner they will unwittingly accept as normal. It could easily be dismissed as paranoia if I hadn’t once relied on similar methods in business myself.
We are all creatives in some form. While talent brought me favor & attention when I was younger, my dedication to developing only that which I could turn around & teach has allowed me to tap into the greater human potential in myself & others. It is said that the “geniuses” are just those better at disguising their sources. I intend that my life be lived in such a way that those who consider themselves “non-creatives” are still able to see my work as a reflection of all human potential, including their own. The goal is to be a source & teach others to do the same.
Alright – so here’s a fun one. What do you think about NFTs?
While I was generally excited in the beginning for what NFTs could bring to society, I think the greater opportunity has succumbed to greed. Originally, the concept of transparent transactions & non-fungible digital items spelled powerful implications for what we perceive as “real” & how we assess trust. I saw & participated in communities that reflected these same principles; & I even had the opportunity to meet these great people in person during NFT.NYC.
But, as you could expect, the folks & companies looking to get rich quick, as well as influencers who incorrectly assumed their existing following would translate into sales in Web 3.0 without full understanding, all contributed to swaying general public perception. Global adoption of crypto in general was still under 1% by the time the NFT bubble burst, so it was very easy for the media to diminish public perception of the technology in a manner reminiscent to that of climate change dissenters.
As far as the art side goes, I thought it was a great way to break down barriers to entry, allowing art to be judged solely on what an individual likes. Then, like with many other art movements, it largely became about trends. The more I learned about art history & experimented in my own work, the more I realized the practical applications & concepts that are largely missed by today’s digital artists.
For example, shortly after beginning to incorporate into my work concepts of sacred geometry, color relationships, & proportions used by Renaissance artists & ancient cultures alike, I began to notice my toddlers staring closely at my paintings when they entered the room. My autistic daughter began to drastically improve on her eye contact & motor skillsin the months to follow, & began drawing recognizable figures at age 2. Extensive research unveiled the amount of purposefulness that went into the creation of art & architecture in ancient culture related to the effects of these details on the development of human awareness.
NFTs still have some fun applications on face value; but, it was just a personal choice for me to explore the deeper applications of art beyond material & economic gains & shake up the fine art world’s ongoing narrative.
All the original potentials for NFT are still there, but the chances of quick, sweeping & pragmatic use as a supplement to other existing systems in global society have greatly dwindled.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.the-ema-art.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/the_ema_art
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/artbytheema
Image Credits
Justina ChiChi