It’s 10:20 AM. I’m slumping into the office, which is a room in my home. I have the privilege of working from home. No commute. No dangerous drivers. It should be a dream!
Yet… my eyelids are hanging. I’m yawning. I’m filled to the brim with dread and misery. I had a full night’s rest. Slept a peaceful 9 hours. What’s going on? Why do I feel so empty?
Simple.
I had just come back from the greatest Christmas vacation I ever had. Went to the movies with my family. Enjoyed a hearty Christmas dinner. I devoured a turkey, stuffing, and cranberry sauce, almost like the Thanksgiving dinner that we had just a month ago. Sugar cookies, my favorite sweets ever, were dessert.
But, just 3 weeks later, I was about to clock in and take more back-to-back phone calls from pissed customers. You see, I was working a call center job for a large financial services company. You have to know just how emotional people can get about their money. I had just 5 more minutes before a flood of phone calls came ringing in. As someone who’d done call center work for 2 years, I felt less and less like a human being.
“I’ve gotta get out of here. Only reason I’m here is for the cash anyway”, I thought. But, no sense complaining. If you have a problem, then find a solution. I shifted from “I’m miserable” to “what could I do to escape call center work?”.
It was this very moment that I recalled a commission that I finished in college. Montreal, Canada. Yes, that name was familiar because I made a painting for a school staff member who visited this city and wanted a way to memorialize it. This man loved it so much that he bought a print and hung it in his apartment.
- Atlanta, GA Skyline
- Atlanta Skyline (Night)
I wondered, “Obviously, other people hate their jobs. There’s no way that school staffer was the only person who visited a cool city and wanted a painting of it. What about painting glow-in-the-dark paintings of city skylines?”. Yes, I loved this idea.
I always have random ideas for artworks. I’m the kind of person who’d paint an Ice Age landscape of a woolly mammoth enjoying a waterfall, a port at the Aegean Sea in Greece, or something as surreal as a teacup solar system. As an artist, it’s always been my aim to transport viewers to an almost mythical or surrealist location that they’ll never see in their daily lives so that they can forget about the endless rat race for a moment. I sat on this idea for several months. But, finally, I decided to start working on this painting series.
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I cherish the work that I make, and I’m happy to have earned a few awards as a new artist, such as the Finalist Award for Art Show International’s 2022 International Juried Art Competition for my detailed landscapes. I don’t make art just to show how great of an artist I am. I make art to help people see that there’s more to life than mindless jobs. There’s plenty that this world has to offer beyond the 9-5 grind. If I can make someone realize that through a glow-in-the-dark painting of a city that they love, then I’m good to go.
Photo Credits
Images are (c) Belinda Tagoe – All Rights Reserved
Guest Artist Bio
Belinda Tagoe
Born in January 1996, Belinda Tagoe is a painter and an illustrator. She’s been making art since 1999 (early starter). Belinda’s not the type to ponder about the deeper meaning or the socioeconomic implications of every painting that she makes. Instead, she sees everyday objects like a car, an elephant, a piece of broccoli, or a teapot and thinks, “hey, what would this look like in a different setting?”. The end result? Some of the surrealist and idyllic pieces that you see before you. Her artworks are an escape from reality. Her main goal is to make sure that, for 10 minutes a day, you aren’t thinking about mindless 9-5 busy work or rent.
When she’s not painting, she’s reading about meteorology. She’s a heck of a weather geek! Also, her favorite surrealist painter is Salvador Dali.
Website: belleroseart.com
Instagram: @marmaladepop88
TikTok: @marmaladepop88
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