Logan Ruben

FINDING HAPPINESS IN PAINTING

I spent a lot of my childhood surrounded by various family members, with a preference of the fly-on-the-wall experience. While not all too artistically active at a young age, my imagination and trains of thought were leaps and bounds ahead of my time. I started looking at art a little more seriously towards the end of high school, but with no formal teachings, it had been more an explorative stage in my life. Art, to me, is a means of both expressing and discovering one's soul and its journey along the path of life. My family is very supportive of my art, and I will be forever thankful for their patience. My oldest daughter is always excited to paint or draw, so to see this is always endearing. As an artist, I am constantly reflecting on what it is that separates me from the crowd, but I'm afraid I haven't quite found what that is yet. My painting Happy was inspired by the overwhelming sense of understanding of my place in time, wherein my wife and I were expecting our first daughter (Adaline). To my fellow Inuvialuit artists: never forget where you have come from, never forget the wisdom of our Elders, and never forget why you first started creating.