Beacon Blogger: Lindsey Venable - Beacon Continues!

Today we continued to have seminars from 7:30 in the morning to about 4 in the afternoon. I was able to hear a lot of excellent speakers that really got my creative juices flowing again. Erik Wahl got up on stage with three black canvasses, had some music playing in the background, and continued to create his art bit by bit. The audience was drawn in to what he was doing because when he starts it looks like he's just throwing some paint on a canvas and going with it but when the piece was complete, and the music was done, it ended up being easily recognizable people.

For example, a U2 song was playing in the background while Erik was painting and by the time the song was done he had created a painting of Bono that look exactly like him. He later created a picture of Mickey Mouse and Albert Einstein as well. The main message that Erik was trying to get at is we are all influenced at a young age to follow a certain path. If the path that we want to follow isn't what our parents or teachers think is best for us, we get discouraged and give up. Erik's seminar was to teach us to go out and try the things we were once discouraged from pursuing. The speech that Erik gave inspired me even more to not give up on my dream and to continue to try new things. Even though the fear of failure is discouraging, making my dreams a reality is always worth the risk.