AMANI

Hi, my name is Amani (ah- m- ah- n-ee.) Jaliyah, a twelve year old artist at plessy! I’ve been here for about a year, almost two! Plessy is a big change for me. All the opportunities and activities here have given me a huge cultural shock to what I’m used to.

Artists are important because art is all around us in New Orleans. The world is art. Without art Earth would be a gray all over, no expressions, nothing interesting. It took me a long time to be confident with my art so let me answer some questions that query me on that subject! The person that inspired me to make art is my best friend Eliiot. Elliot and I went to the same school before I came to Plessy. He was extremely talented and inspired me so much that I started to do it myself. I looked up to him, and therefore, I wanted his approval on everything I did.

I love doodling on paper mostly with pencil. For some reason drawings always come out better when you’re not trying. I know an art piece is done when I’m mentally done with it. I get inspiration from people who have already made the overall idea and I just want to fix a couple things. Or someone might say something and I get an idea to create something. Personally I don’t think I have a specific artstyle, sometimes I want to do realism or I want to do a kawai version of a often preserved as realistic thing. So I guess I just go with the flow.  I honestly don’t go about making creative decisions in the “best” way, but what I do is put more thought into the actual story behind the character I’m making or the initial idea, so it can match what I want to add or what I wanna take away.

The hardest thing for me being an artist is when my teacher tells me something or points out something about my art that I realize ruins the idea behind it or ruins it altogether. If I make a mistake while I’m painting it’s really annoying and I deal with it by taking breaths. My first goal as an artist is to be confident and give myself credit on what I did do instead of what I didn’t. My second goal is to stay on task with something like headphones. I’m struggling with being on task. I really procrastinate sometimes or I don’t feel motivated when I don’t like my art or when my vision doesn't come to life. It’s very hard to always be on task when you dislike what you’re working on. I started to bring wireless headphones to school to play music to help me concentrate on my work instead of talking to others and so far it’s going pretty good!

My advice to someone who just started creating art is: don’t let anyone whether your art is art that includes not letting them sneak diss you about your art either!

I wouldn’t do visual art professionally. I want a job where I can make ‘bank’ without actually doing anything so maybe an architect  but I don’t like math so maybe not!