I yearn to know and love the world and myself, to seek truths and share my discoveries through art. According to a Swedish proverb, “Shared joy is double joy; shared sorrow is half a sorrow.” Through art we share and therefore transform our greatest joys and deepest sorrows. As poet Adrienne Rich once conveyed, our wounds come from the same source as our power; then it could also be said that our power comes from the same source as our wounds. When we create from the impulse to represent truth in art, we heal, we repair, we come together, we make friends—some of whom we may never even meet. To me, the significance of art is its defiance, as an act of rebellion in the face of a harsh, ephemeral world; that our humanity, our stories last despite the material basis of our lives, even of our art and our bodies. Art calls attention to the deeper truths that are forgotten, sometimes of necessity, in our day-to-day survival. Through the act of creating art I find my deepest purpose and my truest self; through expression of these, I connect with fellow truth-seekers and my joy is doubled.

JANEL GALNARES