Messily throwing paint, sending colorful splatters onto the canvas and the stone patio, senior Jordan Marin watches his creation come to life. The many imperfections may seem accidental to some, but to him, the chaos of a painting is the most important part.
Before Marin started going by the creative alias “J.D.M.,” an acronym of his full name, he only ever made art for a grade in school. The lines drawn for him by his teachers and the endless projects they handed out seemed pointless, but everything for him changed when he started to break those boundaries last summer.
“I genuinely started painting how I felt and then it kind of turned into a form of therapy for me,” Marin said. “That’s when I fell in love with it because I was able to put stuff into a painting instead of keeping it inside.”
Marin developed his own unique artistic voice through this personal approach to creativity within the last six to seven months, he’s spent painting purely for himself.
“The fuel comes from emotions I feel on the day-to-day,” Marin said. “Most of the time I paint when I’m either sad or angry. Sometimes I paint when I’m happy and I have happy paintings, but mostly it’s just strong emotions that I want to get out.”
Marin’s biggest struggle in choosing to make art this way is its vulnerability—posting on various social media accounts for digital and physical media means his emotions are on full display, but he isn’t discouraged.
“I know if I am vulnerable, I will make better art, because if I hold anything back, then I’m basically stopping myself from what I could achieve,” Marin said. “Once I am vulnerable, people can actually relate with it. When somebody relates with something, they feel like they’re not alone.”
Marin reached some of his proudest moments by making art more transparently, including co-directing a short film called “young, dumb, & thinking about dying,” which will be submitted to a film festival in the spring.
“I had a traumatic experience when I was younger and so I felt like to fully move on from it, I would put it in a film,” Marin said. “It was really hard to show my family, because they did that, you know and it’s about them, but I think it’s my biggest success so far.”
The short film is one of many examples of Marin’s exploration into different artistic mediums and styles. In fact, delving into so many different types of art is a big way he fuels his productivity.
“The way I stay productive is I always like to bring new stuff in—new paint, new way of editing, new way of making a film, so I entertain myself and I don’t get bored and stagnant,” Marin said. “Part of my creative process to keep painting is I work on five to six paintings at a time so I can go back and forth if I get bored with one.”
Just as his artistic methods are consistently evolving, so is Marin’s life. When encountering challenges, he turns to art to help him move through his struggles—Marin no longer lives with his parents, but the family he lives with now has been instrumental to his creative growth.
“When I started living with my friends’ family, they really just gave me a space to do whatever I wanted,” Marin said. “I don’t think I would be painting right now if I didn’t have them in my life, because I wouldn’t have a space to paint. It means more than anything.”
Just as his support system gives him a place to create, Marin’s idols in the creative world, including the artist and musician David Choe, give him the inspiration he needs to continue making art.
“[Choe] basically preaches to paint how you feel,” Marin said. “One of my favorite quotes from him is, ‘If you don’t know how to start a painting, how do you feel right now? What color does that look like?’ He’s just so emotional with his art. If he can do it, why can’t I do it?”
Seeing others create art in their own, bold way helped Marin realize that he, too, can make an identity for himself and a future through art, something that continues to propel his creativity.
“I just want to do [art] for the rest of my life and I feel like I would be happy doing that for the rest of my life,” Marin said. “I don’t think I would be happy working a nine to five or a normal job. My nightmare is working behind a desk.”
And, Marin already envisions what this future will look like. His hope is to run a communal space where local Texas artists can collaborate and learn.
“My dream is to run a gallery-slash-school space, be the head of that and have upstairs be a classroom and downstairs be an art gallery,” Marin said. “There’ll be nights where it’s just [showcasing] one person, or if I want to do a showcase, I can do it too, but I want to help more people get their art out there.”
Despite the uncertainty of a future in the arts, Marin tries to remember that no future is certain, an approach that helps him focus on just doing what makes him happy while he can.
“I mean, I could die tomorrow, you know, I feel like that is always in the back of my head,” Marin said. “Everybody has a judgmental voice, whether it be their own, their friends’ or whatever—just don’t listen to it. Do what you feel is right.”
