I’ve been called intense several times in my life and each time I take it as a compliment. I’m not unfriendly, but I’m also not super outgoing and smiley, which often leads to well meaning strangers telling me to smile. I am afraid, though, that sometimes my serious demeanor may make me seem less approachable or happy than I am. When going through the website of a fellow Florida artist I’ve admired for a long time, Sean Mahan, I was struck by how much his slightly sad-seeming figures reminded me of my own misunderstood facade.
This pattern of assumption and misapprehension goes both ways, too. Sometimes the people who seem the happiest and most jovial are deep down incredibly sad. We put on a display for other people.. it’s what is expected, what makes them comfortable, no matter whether or not it is true to what we feel inside. It’s taken me a long time to be content with my own temperament, to be OK with being the quiet observer instead of the life of the party. But it is who I am and I’m cool with that. Just don’t tell me to smile.
To see more of Sean Mahan‘s work, please visit his website.
All images are via the artist’s website.
