“It’s like this”, I said confidently.
“Imagine your lived experience on a canvas, only the canvas has been passed down since the first generation of your name. Then that canvas becomes 2 combined, sharing lineage through painting along the way. Eventually, your ancestors will start losing space and will try to make sure everyone has space to paint. Then the canvas is full by the time you receive it and you just stare at it. You see the colors used before you, the weight of their brush strokes, and you don’t want to change it… Or you feel you can’t, because you believe there’s nothing more to add. Until one day you feel good, you feel you know yourself, and you begin to move. Maybe adding some colors that weren’t used or marks symbolizing your own statements towards the generational canvas. But they are yours, and they are also not. The way you hold the brush, the lines you create were taught to you and you can see how long down the lines those brush strokes have been taught. The canvas was never full when you received it, it was an amalgamation of what makes you and how you fit yourself in that art. And you made the canvas even more unique because you changed it and became a part of it. “
Something With Nothing 