Wonders of Human Wonders

Intricate details, precise charcoal scribbles, the fabrication of one’s own creative imagination displayed on physical reality. The wonders of the human mind are meant to be explored, to grasp concepts never written before. But where do they all go to be displayed to the naked eye? Art. It’s one of humanity’s greatest inventions. The capability of transferring one’s own thoughts and interpreting them on mere paper by pencil fascinated me as a kid. But not only that. It’s not just Art, but what people fabricate with it. Reptiles that existed millions of years ago? Fictional monsters that belittles even the tallest buildings? Mechanical organisms that far exceed the advancement of technologies?

But there is more. Humans that are capable of supernatural capabilities. And by that, humans with powers, humans that control elements, humans that exceed our usual physical limits. They inspire me a lot. It makes me want to fabricate my own versions of these entities, to explore what they explored all with the power of art. But Art is subjective, people have their own interpretations of art. In my perspective, Art is made with nothing more than the person’s deep burning passion, something they would spend all their years dedicated to. That’s Art and it wasn’t just an observation, it was empirical.

When I was young, I was exposed to the media current to my age. There I saw on the screens, masterpieces of our time. I saw amazing wonders fabricated by hard work. Maybe it’s just young me speaking, but I still stare in awe at the sheer raw power and the absolute pinnacle ingenuity of our time. Steam locomotives. Modern technology is impressive and all, but when you look at steam engines, this is raw power displayed in plain sight. You feel the weight of these engines. How they pull immense freight and cargo with nothing but fire, coal, and water. This isn’t just an engine, this was Art moving on the railway.

But moving on the fiction side of things, I had a deep fascination for giant mechanical humanoid mechanisms capable of fending off larger opponents, materialising weapons from their own anatomical structure, being able to shift and convert into everyday or even fictional vehicles, and so on. It’s implausible, but back then I believed it was real. I loved the utilization of shapes to give each mechanism a recognizable silhouette. This was Art on creative mechanical fiction and complexity and it inspired me to achieve this level of imagination.

Next would be fictional creatures. Think of foxes, but give them more than one tail. Those are now considered ancient animals. Think of crocodiles but give them wings and the capability to exhale fire. Those are now considered dangerous airborne creatures, above the hawks and eagles. Dinosaurs were a real thing back then, but take a theropod, make its tail longer, refigure the anatomy to stand more upright, give it protruding dorsal plates like a stegosaurus, increase its size to belittle buildings, and make it exhale not fire, but a radioactive release. This was Art on a fantasy perception of actual animals, turning them into something ancient, primordial, and powerful.

These examples would then be the reason why I started to pick up the pencil and start replicating the way they look, the way they feel, the way they act, and just about everything they are. They were not good, but I couldn’t care less. I yearned to improve my level of imagination and creativity and back then, nothing could stop me. Unless I ran out of paper and pencils.

But it isn’t just the creative and imaginative aspects that makes up art. I believed art was separate from the artist, but the more I continued to fabricate new pieces to flourish, I realized it’s not just about the art, but how the artist connects with their piece. It’s how the artist pours their emotion, their inner conflicts, their tragedies, their love, and their life in order to create beauty never before seen until now. This is one realization that will always stick to me. Where an artist is never separate from art, but rather, both are mirrors to one-self.