Over the course of the past year, I’ve been working on a mini-documentary centered around my “Paint What You Feel” demonstration. (if you don’t know what this is, check out the other entries/articles in this section to familiarize yourself!) I traveled to several states doing this demonstration to learn more about vulnerability, self-expression, self-awareness, and…well, just people.
But as I add on to the list of places I’ve done this at…one thing I haven’t thought much about, or talked much about, is the first time I ever did “Paint What You Feel”. So I thought it might be fun to share a few reflections from my first ever time doing this demonstration…which was back in 2016 at the University of Memphis...
It’s very easy for me to vividly remember the time…it was early November of 2016…and keenly-minded historians will know that that time would’ve been mere days after Donald Trump had just been elected to office. This wasn’t something that was intentionally planned at all, but the heightened emotional state of everyone on campus (and everyone in the world) I believe definitely played a part in the success of it all.
These days I always ask for permission from campus authorities before I set everything and put the blindfold on….but not back then haha. I just stood where I felt like was best, which was right in the center of the most heavily-trafficked and populated area of campus. I had my very good friend at the time, Austin, who was an incredibly talented artist, planted as the first person to come up and start painting. I really had no idea how this was going to go and I was prepared for nobody to interact or engage with it. But I thought maybe people would be more open and eager to participate if there was someone they could see demonstrating what you’re supposed to do. So shortly after I put the blindfold on, Austin came up and spent a solid chunk of time painting on the side of my chest, and I could hear him periodically encouraging others who were standing and watching to come up and paint something of their own. Before I knew it…things started to escalate…
While I’m doing this demonstration, it’s important to note that I don’t speak. Of course I can still hear, and these days I might gesture in some way if somebody says something or tells me where they’re about to paint…but I don’t want to influence any part of what someone expresses or how they react to what I’m doing in any way. So all I allow myself to be is a blind witness. But it was very clear to me that one person quickly became three or four, which quickly became seven or eight, which quickly became a small crowd…which then became just an uncountable crowd of people hovering around my demonstration. I remember being astonished by the engagement and from the reactions. I never in a thousand years thought that so many people would be eager to share something.
Some memorable moments:
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Somebody wrote something bad across my collarbone…honestly can’t remember what it was. But I remember a small group of probably 3 girls come up and say almost verbatim, “I can’t believe someone would write that. Yeah, why did they do that? Wait lets cover it up. Yeah, lets paint hearts over it!” And sure enough when I was done I saw a row of hearts right below my neckline
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My old friend Jeffery put paint on his lips and kissed me on the cheek. Nice
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And I just remember so many people very delicately expressing their gratitude for what I was doing. And it really made me start to feel like I didn’t even know what I was doing. To me it was just meant to be a simple demonstration that would hopefully just lead more people back to my music…but it became very apparent that there was a lot more here than even I was aware of before putting the blindfold on
I remember when I was done, taking the blindfold off, and there was a crowd of probably 10-15 people just standing there waiting for me to speak. I was definitely not anticipating a speech of any kind haha but I remember saying something and then people clapped and walked away and I just stood there like what the hell just happened?
But just off of that one experience, everything that happened that day, it stuck with me for YEARS, and I never did it again. It was just always something in the back of my mind that I remember being really cool, and I felt like something really special happened that day…but it could probably never happen again. Until at some point, about a year after the COVID lockdown…something triggered in my brain that I’d be foolish to not try doing that demonstration at least one more time just to see how people would react today.
And sure enough, I found that it was the same every time. Everytime I put the blindfold on, it wouldn’t take more than 2 minutes for someone to pass me, stop, and then paint their expression. Everytime I think it’s not going to work and I’m proven wrong every demonstration. I’ve come to fully realize how much all of us just need a space to be completely vulnerable and transparent. How much all of us need a space to just be present, and not think about anything else other than what’s on our mind in the moment, and what we’re sharing right NOW. And maybe most importantly, how much we can learn from observing what those around us are really thinking and feeling, unfiltered, unhindered by algorithms…just raw human expression.
The world seems like it wants us to be human less and less these days…and I hope that “Paint What You Feel” can somehow remind people of the beauty of what it means to exist as a human being. I can’t wait to continue doing more of these demonstrations, and I can’t wait to share this mini-documentary with the world soon. Thank you for being here and love you all.