Beyond the Brush: Akiane Kramarik on This Is My Life
Before she painted This Is My Life, Akiane Kramarik stepped into a dance studio and tried ballet herself. What stayed with her was not the choreography but the devotion: dancers arriving day in and day out, giving hours of practice and concentration to their craft, the same way she gave herself to painting. In this episode of Beyond the Brush, Akiane shares why the young ballerina in the painting is shown carefully fastening the ribbons of her pointe shoes, and how those two ribbons came to carry a deeper meaning. Watch the video below, then read the story in Akiane’s own words.
“…she is precisely fastening the ribbon of dedication and the ribbon of passion. And if she fastens them tightly, then she can dance her most beautiful and graceful.”
— Akiane Kramarik
About This Video
Beyond the Brush is a video series in which Akiane Kramarik shares the inspiration and meaning behind the masterpieces featured in Akiane: The Early Years at Belóved Gallery. In this episode, Akiane reflects on This Is My Life, a painting born from her own time in a ballet studio, where the dancers’ daily devotion mirrored the dedication she felt toward her own art. She painted the young ballerina carefully fastening the ribbons of her pointe shoes because a dancer whose ribbons are precisely wrapped can perform at her most beautiful and graceful. For Akiane, they became the ribbon of dedication and the ribbon of passion. Painted life-size when Akiane was eleven, the ballerina invites viewers to step into her zone of concentration. The original painting is on view in Akiane: The Early Years at Belóved Gallery in Marble Falls, Texas.
Continue exploring the series with earlier episodes on Penguin, Symphony, and The Relic.
Video Transcript
Beyond the Brush: Akiane Kramarik on This Is My Life Video Transcript
This is called This Is My Life. It was actually inspired by one of the many times that I experienced and tried to do ballet in the past. It was one of those experiences of just witnessing the devotion of all these dancers who were coming day in and day out, and the practice and the hours that they put into this art of dance.
And here I am, an artist coming into a dance studio. I have no training. Everything is very, very different from my world. And I was just so enamored and so inspired by them. The way I was devoted to my art, they are devoted to their own art.
The reason why I wanted to paint the two strings and the two ribbons on her shoe is that I knew for a fact that if those strings were not precisely wrapped, her ankle and the way her legs moved and her dancing would not perform the best, and she could get injured.
And the whole concept, the reason why I wanted that action of fastening the ribbons, is that she is precisely fastening the ribbon of dedication and the ribbon of passion. And if she tightly fastens it, then she can dance her most beautiful and graceful.
When I was like 11 years old, I might have been just a tad bit taller from the painting, but I wanted to incorporate a life-sized ballerina where you can immerse yourself into her zone and into her concentration in her art.