Art is freeing. It is one of the only ways to escape problems without ever leaving them. It provides a release for anyone seeking it. There are so many kinds of art: music, theatre, painting, drawing, sculpting, and writing. All work the same way in creating that escape.

To me, art is a haven of sorts; I draw to transport me to another place, I sing to rid myself of problems and stress, I write to clear my mind, I act to forget about myself. When I am acting, I can discover, just for a moment, what it is like to be someone entirely new, in a strange place, with problems I have never experienced. I can live and breathe and think for someone who is not Katy Hastings. Once at a rehearsal, we played a game where at any given moment during a scene someone’s character would be called out and they would then have to give an inner-monologue off the top of their heads. This exercise was absolutely terrifying. I dreaded the moment when someone would call out my character’s name and I would have to spill out whatever thought entered my head. When the moment arose, I just talked. I shared, I divulged, and I discovered secrets about my character that I had never even thought of before.

Art itself is a discovery. In a painting, a drawing, an improvised soliloquy, or an essay, the artist creates and realizes at the same time. While an artist may have an idea or image in their mind of what the end result should be, it will never be that same vision. In "The Writing Life", author Annie Dillard stresses that when the artist adds to this “blurred thing of beauty”, it morphs into something new and leaves the initial vision entangled somewhere within it (Dillard 56). For the writer, the pen writes for itself and transforms the blank page into remnants of the writer’s original idea. The writer, or any artist, goes about his or her work how he or she usually does, but the artwork is ever-changing. The artist must keep up with the art, which proves to be a difficult feat since there is no telling what the mind, pencil, or paintbrush will create next. Art is unexpected, art is sudden, and art is the discovery.

Art, writing especially, is formed from experiences. Writing is truly the result of experiences and relationships made throughout life. One’s past influences his or her writing immensely. Transcendentalist writer Henry David Thoreau once wrote, “How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not yet stood up to live.” Life gives a writer something to write about. Without living, without experiences, there are no stories to tell, no lessons to learn, no meanings to search for. A writer’s past shapes the writer. Every moment contributes to the grand scheme of one's life. Each and every moment is meaningful and possesses the opportunity to create something brilliant.

Writing is discovering. It is remembering. It is my way of escaping.