We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Anahi Castillo-Leavitt. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Anahi below.
Anahi, thanks so much for taking the time to share your insights and lessons with us today. We’re particularly interested in hearing about how you became such a resilient person. Where do you get your resilience from?
My mother is a sole contributor to my resilience. She came to the United States as an immigrant at 16 years old with absolutely nothing trying to escape a dangerous environment and suffered the most unbearable pain at such a young age, yet, with all of her mental load she still was the best mom I could ever ask for. While she worked nail and bone cleaning hotel rooms just so she could afford me dolls and made sure I was fed. Looking back, I wonder how she did it.
I still lived through abuse, witnessed divorce, and felt her pain yet she still gave me the world. I witnessed her slowly reaching her goals, finally becoming a legal resident, and then a United States citizen. Going through school, I faced my own scrutiny as the art kid. I had faced more negativity than positivity in my classroom environment, and found many people trying to dull my light out of annoyance or jealousy. Going into college, I faced a life-changing event that still impacts me to this day. I had a bad reaction to a medication this February of 2024, and because of it my vision and energy has greatly been impacted since then. It can be difficult to just sit upward some days and walking can be especially difficult. When things get so unbearably hard, and I’m no longer able to contribute to my work as an artist, I always give my mom a call. She tells me:
“Look at me, all of the things I have been through, I am still here and alive today. Things got better, even though I felt like I was going to die.”
And she was right. Things in life shift and change constantly, just like the way our brains change every day. With both of us growing up together with nothing; a new 18 year old mother and a single child to a U.S citizen and first generation College student, resilience is the fuel that keeps us moving.
Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?
Since I was a kid, I wanted the world to see my art.
I was raised in dysfunction, yet coloring within the lines felt like the thing I had the most control of. Teachers in elementary school would be cross with me over my infatuation with cutting and gluing things together, and this carried on into high school. I actually had teachers debate with me over it. You pass this test, I let you draw in class. Deal!
My old art teacher, Mr. Brown, was my rock during my years of discovery. I actually had the make-up room to myself to work on my own projects and had separate assignments as I was so incredibly driven. He was a major role in supporting my work and skills. But ever since I could remember, I’ve been trying to focus on developing my skills and boosting my artistic career.
When I found instagram and received 12 likes on my posts by strangers it was the most powerful thing for me, as I felt seen. Over time, I have cultivated a mass following of 65.6K supporters who watch my art. I have learned how to master color through chronic painting and constant search for knowledge in my teenage years. It was relentless, how desperate I was to find the next best thing. I mix semi-realism and fantasy together with traditional tools like colored pencils, and markers. Especially, acrylic paint.
If you are interested to support me and my work in the future, you can find me at @salty_knees on instagram!
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
My high school art teacher was my artist dictionary with legs. He taught me extremely crucial skills that I still utilize, and lead me onto discovering some of my own. One thing, don’t shade with black. It was challenging for me to follow that, but this led me to learn how shading with warm and cool tones is an important skill to learn. I challenge new artists to try and avoid using grey and black when learning how to use color. For artists who work small, I deeply encourage you to work as big as you possibly can.
Trust me, it sounds like it sucks. It does, at times.
To work on a surface area or canvas at least the length of your body is an important way to teach yourself morals, skills, and learn more about your work ethic. When you feel overwhelmed, take a break. When you feel you made some sort of breakthrough, remember what you did. When your workspace is a thrashed mess, learn to keep your things tidy. When you learn to love to work big, it creates these beautiful masterpieces that you can sit back, look, and tell yourself: “Wow, I did that.” OR ones that you absolutely despise, but those ones are just as important as the beautiful ones.
One more thing. Do not let others dim your shine. Shine as bright as you possibly can until you feel like the sun, because it will get you somewhere. Not where you might expect, but somewhere. When you feel that you aren’t shining enough, learn some issues you’re having issues with and study those until you feel improvement. When I struggled to draw hands or perspective, I would look up examples and trace. Trace, and then horribly try to do it myself. The more I did it, the more I found out how easy it could be.
I was able to shine much brighter the more I learned.
What is the number one obstacle or challenge you are currently facing and what are you doing to try to resolve or overcome this challenge?
Im currently in my Junior year of College and I’m trying to get my degree in design.
This has been one of the hardest experiences of my life. For some reason, my body has just been trying to shut me down, and because of that I have been unable to be the tenacious artist I used to be. To this day I am unsure if it was because of a medication I reacted to, stress, or some deeper issue.
Because my vision is affected, I strain when I try and sit and draw which is extremely devastating. There are no good days either, so I have put down the pencils for now to try and discover what could be wrong with me. This is the hardest thing I have ever done. Art has been my life, and the only thing I have ever been good at because of my curiosity. So I am temporarily retired unless it’s work towards my degree.
I am focusing on my recovery. Eat, drink, rest, and hope the doctor has some sort of answer. Until then, I wait for my college semester to be over so I can focus 100% of my attention in regaining the burning passion I had for my work.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/salty_knees/
