We’re looking forward to introducing you to Andy Arens. Check out our conversation below.
Hi Andy, thank you for taking the time to reflect back on your journey with us. I think our readers are in for a real treat. There is so much we can all learn from each other and so thank you again for opening up with us. Let’s get into it: Are you walking a path—or wandering?
After a lot of years feeling like I’ve been wandering, I finally feel like I’m walking on a path that not only feels wholly me but also guided by God. I think part of that is just from embracing my new role as a father over the last four years what the journey has opened my eyes up to inside me, and the radical embrace of letting God lead my life. My artist journey has continued to evolve as I walk this path and I think it has become more focused, less from me and more through me. The path laid in front of me is allowing me to share my story in ways that are raw and deeply honest, to earnestly bring more hope into this world. I’m walking this path by faith into the unknown, but that excites me more these days than scares me.
Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
My name is Andy and I am a Colorado based artist. I have mainly work with acrylic on canvas throughout my career but in the last five years I have expanded into illustration and in 2021 had my illustrations published in a children’s book called Wash Up Buttercup. Over the last 15 years my brand PaintedVisionCreations started as a hobby and passion and has evolved into more of a storytelling artform throughout the years. My art, I’d say has become more of a conduit to express and praise God and His beauty in the creations of this universe.
My paintings are diving deeper into what our place as humans means in the vast landscape of the cosmos, the story of that meaning and the beauty of our walk hand in hand with our Creator.
With the expansion into illustrations, one of the big projects I’m working on currently is my first graphic novel, I’m hoping to share a sort of fictionalized autobiography, centered around Hope, Courage, Faith in God and a journey back to Yourself, and agency for yourself that no one can take away.
I’m looking forward to continuing to share my story and hopefully resonate and bring hope into our sometimes darker world
Appreciate your sharing that. Let’s talk about your life, growing up and some of topics and learnings around that. What part of you has served its purpose and must now be released?
I think the biggest thing that has served its purpose that I’ve been working on releasing is just the idea that I don’t need to be in control of everything and the more I trust and put my faith in God, the more peace I obtain, the more my patience grows.
The last half decade of my life has brought challenges in my life that I’d never thought I’d go through. A lot of loss, a lot of failing. Through that failing I kept believing that I had to do things for myself and if I didn’t take care of it or deal with it right away, it would fail. And more often than not the more I worked harder the more I felt I was falling behind.
The journey took me through neuroscience, quantum physics and ultimately back to my faith, back to Jesus, on a very personal intimate but also scientific basis. Through that rediscovery of my faith, my art has felt more successful. Not that I’m cranking out hundreds of pieces and selling a bunch, but the art is more contemplative, reflective and focused. I’m not forcing ideas to come to me, I’m letting them come through me. The releasing of that pressure on myself has allowed my art to flourish creatively.
A prayer/mantra that has become ritual for me going into my creative sessions has been “ Great Creator, you worry about the quality, I’ll worry about the quantity.” That turning of everything over to God has been the key in the next step of evolution for myself and for my art.
What did suffering teach you that success never could?
Suffering has taught me that you can’t go through life alone, or thinking you are alone, God is always with you. And because of that, the suffering you have gone through, are going through or will go through will set you on a path that is truer to yourself and to God.
Success is an amazing gift, but it’s not where you find the strength inside to keep going. The suffering I have faced in the last 5 years of life has been difficult, but it’s within that suffering that I’ve found the person I was meant to be.
Suffering has shown me how far I can push myself, how much potential I have for growth and how much I can accomplish when I seemingly have nothing. Without the growth that suffering in my life has brought, I don’t think I’d be the father, brother or leader that I am today.
I believe that suffering in life gifts us a certain gratitude and perspective on the beauty of the fleetingness of the good in our lives. As the stoics put it, Memento Mori, “Remember Death”. Be grateful for your life, even the suffering.
I think our readers would appreciate hearing more about your values and what you think matters in life and career, etc. So our next question is along those lines. What’s a belief or project you’re committed to, no matter how long it takes?
Something that has become an important belief and project as I’ve started on this journey of fatherhood is the emphasis and foundational importance of good men and good fathers in our society and in our children’s lives.
My journey as a father has been a difficult one to say the least. A literal war to be in my child’s life but a war I’d fight a thousand times over. The evolution my art and storytelling has gone through currently reflects this cornerstone, as it is the essence of the graphic novel I am currently working on. As much as it is a story of redemption and coming back to the Father, the core is a Father’s journey through darkness and fire to be there for his child, that unconditional love that comes with being a father.
With my story and my art, I’d like to give a voice to those unsung heroes, the men who have sacrificed, forgone their egos and have done what’s good in the name of God. The trials and tests those heroes go by bearing their crosses for us. These meek men of God deserve honor and a voice, and I hope to share that with my stories.
Okay, so let’s keep going with one more question that means a lot to us: Are you doing what you were born to do—or what you were told to do?
I’m at a stage in my life where I am very blessed and privileged to say that I think I’m doing what I was born to do, what God intended for me, not what people told me to do. Growing up, the rhetoric that was repeated to me was to get a good paying secure job so at least you have a job. “Art is just a hobby, you’ll be a starving artist.”
Happiness within that job or career didn’t much seem to matter, what I wanted didn’t seem to matter much. But that didn’t feel right, you should be doing and enjoy what you’re doing everyday, and if you’re just doing something because it’ll get you by… it just seemed like a very gray option for me. My profession as an Artist as well as Master Electrician both came with a lot of people telling me how I should live, what I should do with my talent and skills, that I should focus on only what I’m good. It was very limiting. But if I had listened to those voices, I wouldn’t be where I am today. I like the unknown and the raw ability to use creativity. That’s where I believe God lead me. He pushed my passions, I continued to paint what I felt needed to be brought to a canvas. I didn’t box myself to only portraits or landscapes or the abstract or basic image reproductions that seems to saturate a lot of art world.
Throughout my career as an artist I’ve stayed true to myself. I’ve broadened my artistic skills into different realms and different mediums, and have become not just an artist but a storyteller also. If I had listened and limited myself to what people told me I should do, I don’t think I’d be as well rounded of an artist/storyteller as I am today. The intimate relationship with God I’ve cultivated over the years THROUGH my art I don’t think would’ve been possible.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: Adventure_along_with_andy
- Linkedin: Check out Andy Arens’ profile on LinkedIn
