Andrew Duer Pursuing Happiness through art

As a bilingual New Yorker, Seeds of the League gave me a new language – an art to really express myself. Ever since I was 6, I trained as a classical ballet dancer, with all the physical and emotional demands of that art. Not until Covid did I ever take a moment to think about why I was dancing or whether I really liked it. My mother, sister, and I had all lost our jobs during Covid. I started drawing again, and I decided to give my mother a painting for Mother’s Day.

Art was my way to some happiness.

I wanted my painting to reflect our history. My mother is first generation Dominican, and my father is second generation Austrian. As a child, I often found myself looking at my grandparents’ walls where images by the Dominican artist, Candido Bibo intrigued me. My google search “Austrian Artists” led me to Gustave Klimt. My thought “pretty colors and patterns” and my dollar store paints resulted in the rapid completion of a Bido style woman with a head dress that I gave Klimt accents. My mother’s love for that painting and for me led her to a search for painting classes for me – even though we couldn’t afford them.

Through the Seeds program, I began mixed media classes with Boyce Cummings. I am now working at the League, and I am also taking a sculpture class, where my dancing and understanding of movement transfers well. Through the “Seeds” program I really have been able to find my footing in the art world.