The Drawings of Marian Arends from The Netherlands

This is our featured artist of the month Miss Marian Arends from the Netherlands.

She was diagnosed with autism much later in life, a condition that does not hinder her from expressing her creativity.

At a very early age, she started to explore her feelings in her drawings because this was her way of communicating.

Growing up in a time of conformity, sadly, she was forced only to draw what she was told at school. However, being left-handed, Marian found it excruciatingly painful when she was told that she should only draw using her right hand like everybody else.

She was always teased as the odd one, although she was the most creative with her unusual and beautiful drawings.

Marian had to put aside her creativity, continue her life, and become a teacher for the visually handicapped.

She soon got married and became a mother of three gorgeous children; though she loves her family, she became all this because it was expected of her in the eyes of society.

All along, she felt something was still not quite right and wrong. But after her late husband’s passing in 1998, she experienced a turning point.

A few weeks after the cremation, she and a friend started painting every wall in her home with different colors.

This was her way of going through the grieving process, which no one could understand, but her inner compass guided her to express herself with these colors in her home.

And it was the first time since childhood that she experienced the healing energy of colors again.

Marian left her city a couple of years later and moved with her children to Texel Island, where she continued teaching. Still, she needed help to conform to the ways of traditional teaching and went through many challenges for not wanting to follow their rules and school systems.

During this difficult time, she was also diagnosed with Asperger Syndrome and lost in her new reality of being labeled autistic. She started questioning her own life and wondered if this was a life worth living.

In 2003, it all started to happen; something within her took charge as she picked up a pen and started drawing. It felt foreign to her, and she remembered feeling scared about what she was doing.

She carried on, not wanting to stop, but Marian knew she had to break down some walls, and she did.

One day a year after her first encounter with her drawings. A niece and friend saw her work and encouraged her to show off her drawings. To which she was puzzled and asked why? “because people may like them and would feel happy by your art,” they told her.

She could not believe this, but soon, other people were saying the same thing. It was really encouraging, so she began posting her work on social media, in which the response was positive.

Her message within her drawings was simple; she just wanted to communicate heart to heart.

Marian wants the world to see people as being different, and this difference is what makes us all special.

There is no one way of living “a good life” on this earth because it takes a variety of us to make it what it is.

Her beautiful drawings are a gift to all of us. Because it is about going beyond our labels and becoming true to ourselves.

Marian Arends is a beautiful soul sent to color our world with her imagination.

You can find Marian Arend’s drawings on her Facebook pages and purchase her fine art and original pieces. Get her art and be inspired by your unique sense of creativity.

We also have a supportive Facebook group you can join by clicking here.

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