LIFE DRIVE In only a year and a half, Asaph, now 37, has built himself a career working as a full-time artist in Windsor. He bounces back and forth between his studio at home and the Accelerator on Howard Avenue. You can find him spending roughly eight to ten hours painting each and every day. His niche is portraits. “I use acrylics on gallery-wrapped canvases,” he said. “I will use mixed-media as well, but primarily acrylics. Most of my art is black and white. I find that there are fewer artists who work in black and white and I find beauty and creativity within the two contrasts with the shades in between. I find it to be a great challenge.” Asaph uses techniques such as splatter art and another called piping. Piping is when paint is funnelled through cake piping bags or snipped Ziploc bags with different sizes and shapes of holes in it. It gives the paintings more texture and depth. He says piping is his most dominant technique and a lot of his work has some form of it. When I asked Asaph about his creative process, I was surprised to learn that he doesn’t require intense focus on the task at hand. Instead, Asaph will listen to audiobooks while he paints, focusing on not one, but two things at once.
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As reading was banned within the cult, it wasn’t until Asaph escaped nice years ago that he picked up his first non-religious book. In the nine years since, he’s become a voracious reader. “I have read nearly a thousand books,” he said. “I am very pleased I’ve been able to read that many books. I think it’s the core of any ritual that I have. I’ll put on a good audiobook and I’ll get to work while I listen about the lives of great achievers, which then inspires me to try to achieve greatness.” Our time together was wrapping up and I couldn’t help but feel inspired by Asaph. Despite such a sheltered past, he escaped his prison and found himself in a world about which he really knew nothing. Through acknowledging his addiction to alcohol and overcoming it, he braved the decision to pursue his passion. “The word addict, I think it’s a beautiful word. It can be applied to anything. The people who are the highest achievers in life have that same tendency. I have always had it. For a while, it was channelled to actual addiction but now I am channelling it towards something better. I wake up, make a painting, and as soon as I’m done—I want to make another one.” D. THEDRIVEMAGAZINE.COM
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