Orchids or Kids?

Description

The Story

This art piece is among the very first digital paintings I created after a long creative block. I created them as my first serious project with a secret 22-letter prompts. For O, I got orchids.

When i started painting from the references, I found a list conveniently enumerating  orchids species, I chose 8 after browsing each on the list. The list stopped at 22. It feels strange 22 keeps coming up. So I quickly finished a rough drawing of three.

I took a break and started automatic drawing (just me scribbling mindlessly on top of the drawing). I somehow formed on one flower, a face. I told myself, well there’s the concept.

I realized, just like the orchid species are all one and the same kind but totally unique individually, I thought, so are we as one human race. It turned out depicting diversity, having 8 kids in orchid flower headdresses, aboard one boat, symbolizing unity and well really, just being in the same boat. Children symbolizes our innate capacity for kindness. Orchids are beautiful, just like all sub races of humanity are.

This piece has amazed me in many ways already but there’s more. The number of beginner artworks this belongs to and the number of orchids in the reference both 22.

And then when I was giving it a title, my natural choice was Orchids or Kids? because I really asked myself jokingly, are they orchids or are they kids? Afterwards, I recited it back to myself once more to let myself feel if it’s truly the right  title for it, when I realized, “Orchids” sound exactly like “or Kids”.

To be honest, after all that, I just decided this piece was long in queue for creation. It is as if every detail has been pre-arranged long before I decided to make it, because third,  if you guessed it, yes, it was birthed into existence in 2022. Another 22.

A very meaningful piece I never imagined myself creating and I, even up to now, still feel rather humbled to be a channel for this particular message very early on.