If I had been born in the 1800’s to a small farming community in rural Ontario, it wouldn’t be too hard to imagine the different factors which would have constructed “the who that I am.”

I probably would have been a farmer.

I would have been a product of the land, and of my family, and our need for physical sustenance and survival. Thinking about this, I realize how drastically different it is from who I am now, and it leads me to this question:

What has constructed ‘the who that I am’ here, in this world?

I sit still and focus on my heart—on the feeling or energy which I identify with. It is called Ricky Schaede in this world, and feels blue and gold and filled with lightning.

I am not a farmer.

I am not a carpenter.

I am not a business tycoon.

I am art, my very self is art, and I suddenly find myself overwhelmed with gratitude to have been born into a world where this is possible—this world, where a wealthy tapestry of imagery and art exists at our fingertips, a tapestry upon which I have woven my self.

Through tools such as the internet, literature and culture, I am constantly exposed to the imagery which resonates with the concepts and motifs I have associated with my self. This enables me not only to associate with these concepts and motifs, but to embrace them, and to literally be them through the creation of my own art.

This means that I am not just my “self” any more, but that the images I create and place into the collective consciousness are also myself and that I am by extension existing within each and every person these images have altered.

Am I one being, a man called Ricky Schaede?

Am I a collection of concepts and themes?

Am I a tapestry of images and colour?

Am I those whose hearts I touch?

Because I live in this world, yes. I am all of it.

I am one and many and everyone and no one.

Because I can, I decide that I am art, and that art is the tool with which I sculpt my self and the world around me. We should consider ourselves blessed to live in a world where we have the freedom and resources to be anything, to be anyone.

We have infinite potential.

We are infinite potential.

We can choose not be created by the world around us, but to use that world as a tool with which we create ourselves.

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Author: Ricky Schaede

Volunteer Editor: Kim Haas / Editor: Catherine Monkman

Image:  Author’s own.