Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Stephen “abstrakt Brutha” Stewart. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Hi Stephen “Abstrakt Brutha”, appreciate you sitting with us today to share your wisdom with our readers. So, let’s start with resilience – where do you get your resilience from?
I believe I get my resilience from my martial arts training. Growing up I lived in a neighborhood where I would get into alot of fights when walking home from elementary school. My parents decided to put me in martial arts classes at a very early age. It was like karate programed me with resiliency, grit, determination and patience. When fighting i had to be able to “roll with the punches” and pick myself back up. I had to learn to shift my mindset to weather through the pain.
Entering tournaments having to fight multiple opponents back to back was very beneficial to building resiliency but even simple task like standing in a wide leged stance for long periods of time until i want to fall over from exhaustion had it’s effectiveness. Martial arts helped me change my mindset about adversity. I learned to stop thinking about challenges as a problem and start thinking about them as an opportunity for growth.
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?
My name is Stephen Alexander Stewart from Concord North Carolina. I have considered myself an artist for as long as I can remember. The first thing I can remember drawing was ninja turtles at age 3 or 4. Cartoons/comicbooks were my first introduction to drawing. In elementary school during recess while all of the other kids would play on the playground I would take my drawing pad and sit in the grass close to the parking lot so I could draw the cars. I belive that’s when I first starting gaining an understanding of how to draw in 3 dimensions.
Once my family could afford a computer I started doing my first digtal artwork, drawing in the Paint application using the mouse control. I always looked for new ways to express my creative nature. In High-school art class I learned acrylic paints, oils, chalk pastels, and clay.
I am very thankful for the art teachers I have had in my life but I never really felt I had a true art mentor. I have had plenty of awesome mentors in other respects but never one who was an example of how to be a financially successful artist.
I was told that my High-school guidance counselors were could help with that but when you are a black student in a white North Carolina school system it is very easy to get overlooked.
My parents were very supportive in my artistic endeavors but they knew nothing about what it would take to succeed in the art world. I didn’t know what direction to go in. I just did what everyone who didn’t have rich parents did, I took out a loan to go to college. I was so concerned about what career path in art would make me alot of money that I ignored the traditional arts and chose the digital arts. I wanted to go to school for animation or game design but in 2004 there were no schools like that in North Carolina. So i settled for Graphic Design.
I am very appreciative of all the skills I’ve learned in the process of getting my associates degree in Graphic Design but I would be lying if I said I enjoyed the projects I’ve had to work on. I had my first feel of what it was like to do art for advertisement. It felt like the essence of creativity was being pushed out the art in order to fit into a corporate package. I was very good at reaching the goal on any project but I often did not feel artisticly satisfied. After graduating, the school’s employment program set up a job opportunity for me to work at an agency that did designs for NASCAR, I turned it down. For a young black man in North Carolina it made me very uncomfortable to work anywhere that is associated with a company that is very known for having alot of racist supporters. This situation only made me realize that I needed to leave North Carolina if I wanted to gain any real opportunities in the art world.
I made a bold choice to take my journey out of state away from home to a place where i had no family or support. I decided go to school in Seattle Washington at The Art Institute for game design where I began to learn the basics of 3d rendering and animation. I learned a few new artistic skills but it was frustrating to see that some of my credits from my previous college did not transfer over so i had to retake classes that i could not afford. I once again had to take out another loan that would only cover but so much of my expenses. I got a part time job at the school’s art supply store to pay for other expenses but it wasn’t enough to last me more than 2 years. I could not afford to keep living in student housing and paying for class which means I had to drop out. Dropping out ment that I also would not be able to keep my housing or my job.
What would I do? Where would I go? I did not want to go back to the slow suburbs of North Carolina where my opportunities were limited. I could not convince myself to call my parents to buy me a plane ticket back to NC.
After sleeping on a friend’s couch for a few weeks I had out stayed my welcome. I was forced to have to lay my head on park benches in raining Seattle Washington. These events forced my mind to go into survival mode. There was nothing left to focus on and no more distractions. This moment is when I truly became a believer in a higher power. My mind stopped focusing on the problem and began to listen and follow my intuition.
My intuition guided me to walk the streets of Seattle until I randomly stumbled upon a friendly face. It was a guy I had previously met before at a college party. I told him my story of how I became unhoused, he told me that he wasn’t getting what he wanted out of the college art experience and he didn’t think he could continue to pay for school housing either. He told me he had applied for a job at a resort hotel lodge in Denali National Park Alaska and that he could get me a job there as well. My intuition told me I should join him on his journey. We got the job together and flew out to Alaska where I had temporary gave up on my visual arts and decided to just concentrate on my spirituality. After a year of living in a beautiful national park I felt I had fulfilled my “spiritual cup” it was like I was fully recharged with more creative energy than ever but i still didn’t feel the need to go back to visual arts. I had decided to use my creativity make music instead. This is when I truly learned that my artistic abilities applied to so many other different areas. My passion for expressing myself through the art of hip hop became cathartic. My new found spiritual growth became the subject of many of my lyrics. I then decided to take my journey to Los Angeles where I would start my music journey.
It’s now been 13 years since I moved to Los Angles and I have only just now decided to fully return to visual arts. I do have plans to combine both my visual arts and music. Right now I’m working on songs that have a visual art piece to accompany each one.
My current music project is set in the theme of cyberpunk. Cyberpunk is a subgenre of science fiction in a dystopian futuristic setting said to focus on the dangers of technology and greedy corporate run governments.
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?
The 3 most important qualities that most impacted my journey have been my resilience, my ability to listen to my intuition, and my empathy toward other people.
My advice for those who want to build resilience is to focus on the things you can change instead of the things you can’t. That simple shift in perspective can make all the difference in your journey.
Listening to your intuition can be a challenge if you do not know how to recognize the difference between intuitive guidance and just your own metal/ emotion choas. The best way to hear your intuitive voice is to first quiet your anxiety fear and stress. Intuition will come to you when you are calm and it will arrive as a feeling instead of a thought. That feeling will guide you like automatic GPS.
Practicing empathy is very important for an artist. It can allow you to make powerful connections and can help you communicate with your audience. To become better at empathy you must be willing to be open to others perspectives.
One of our goals is to help like-minded folks with similar goals connect and so before we go we want to ask if you are looking to partner or collab with others – and if so, what would make the ideal collaborator or partner?
There are 2 types of people I would like to collaborate with. First is anyone who would like to work together on projects that help promote mental and spiritual health. I am a deliver in art therapy and look forward to collaborating with others who want to use art to heal and grow.
The 2nd type of people I would like to collaborate with are people who are passionate about the cyberpunk genre, rather it be music, film, video games or books. I would really appreciate meeting other enthusiast who want to create in the cyberpunk estestic.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://Instagram.com/abstraktbrutha
so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.
