WHERE SHE DECIDED TO PLUNGE

BY DAN JANNIEL ANTOLIN AND JESSELLE MAE GARCIA

Imagine yourself on the edge of a cliff, when everyone tries to push you, when all you hear are those words telling you that jumping is the only way out, what would be that something that would stop you from doing so?

Anjela Maika Ancheta

Who is she? She is just like everyone, a girl, a sister, a daughter, a friend, a child of God. She laughs often and smiles all of the times, but when you try to look at her eyes and take a glance of her soul, you’ll know she is more than that. Behind that typical girl is a girl striving, trying to figure out who she really is, aside from being a sister and a daughter is a girl finding her place in their family, she is a friend who don’t really trust anyone because she had been betrayed by the people she trusted the most, she is a child of God who almost have given up on her life and take it away from herself

She is a bubbly person who will laugh at almost everything, she smiles a lot and loves to interact with people, and it all looked so real that we almost didn’t notice what her eyes are trying to tell us. She experienced anxiety and depression, she used to cut her wrist and overdose drugs, and there came a point in her life where she said that she had enough and all that she want is for the pain to stop, she lost her vision of dreams and who she wants to be.

When she was a child who used to dream so high, that she wanted to go to the moon, travel the world and be someone who will be remembered and as she grew up, she had realized that, yes, we were thought we should dream high, but none told us that sometimes our dreams are just there to be dreams, that most of those dreams are things we can’t put to life, because life is not easy and at times, it is going to be really hard. Her family set up was an unusual one, she grew up knowing her father is dead and later on found out that he is not, and that is the point where her life turned upside down, when she knew that everything she once believed at were all lies, she was told that in the first place she was just a mistake, and grew up remaining as one, she was told that from the start she shouldn’t be there because she is just a burden to everyone, she was lost in the place she thought she knew the most.

Every night she cries herself to sleep wishing that tomorrow won’t come, until one day, she realized that hurting herself and making herself miserable won’t bring anything to her and that was then when she tried engaging herself to something else, she received a set of watercolor paint as her birthday gift and she tried using it until she found herself putting her pain in every stroke she make, she painted colors instead of drawing her skin with lines of wounds, she put the heaviness and emptiness she feel on every shape she draws. She found a friend she can trust, she built a world where her pain won’t just remain as something destructive, and she said that it was truly on a dark night where stars shine the brightest, it was on being lost that she found herself.

Who is she as an artist? She had a tire-some ride on discovering who she is as an artist, she used to be a part of a theatre group in junior and senior high school, she was also the literary and feature editor when she was in high school, she used to express herself through acting and writing until she got engaged in painting from poster paint to oil paint and acrylic until she discovered watercolor painting and got involved in it more than other art mediums she had tried. She said that she loved watercolor more than all the other art mediums because in it, beauty is on its flaws, all you need to do is blend the color with the water and allow it to naturally find its place on the canvass.

At first, her artworks are existing because of her and just for her only, she said that she created them not for anyone to see but just to be there for her and remind her who she was when she painted those and for her to remember what she had been through and what she was able to overcome, but now, as her artworks had been published on the literary portfolio of her previous school which is Saint Mary’s University titled “Meridian”, she received messages saying that she should do more painting and that her paintings don’t just appeal to the eyes but also to their hearts, her mindset changed and now dedicates her paintings to every girl who is struggling and experiencing anxiety and depression. She doesn’t wish to get her paintings known to the world but she wants those paintings to be meaningful to those who know them.

Who is she as her art? Most of her paintings are images of girls, because it’s closest to herself and she said that “When I am painting images of girls, I can feel that I am inside that painting and looking at it I can see who I was and who I want to be”. Her personality is reflected on her artworks also, she usually uses bright colors to portray dark stories, as she used to smile and laugh in front of other people when she is really breaking on the inside.

She might have not painted portraits looking like her but she let the eyes of those portraits speak for themselves too.

During her toughest time, she created a painting titled “Plunged”, she considers it as her masterpiece and at the same time her favorite artwork, not just because it is the most aesthetic but also because it tells so much about her and how she allowed herself to just drop, not on the cliff she was at, not on that cliff where people tried pushing her, not on that cliff where all she heard was voices telling her that jumping there was the only way to stop feeling the pain, she plunged into something that will embrace her, and that was her art.

Know more about Anjela Maika in the video below: