I am an artist. It has taken me forever to admit that I am an artist. All of my life I have been influenced by art. At 3 years old I was drawing stick figures on the walls of my house… and then blaming it on my 1 year old brother. At the end of a long day fighting naps in kindergarten, I found myself mesmerized by my father's natural talents to paint. My father would make money by carving and painting blocks of wood that he made to look like fish because he loved to go fishing.  By 1st grade I was drawing people with actual shape, and by 4th grade my classmates had recognized me as someone who could draw well in comparison to all of the other students.

I had all of these major influences in my life already, but there was one who really stood out to me, and I turned him into something like a superhero amongst all the other artists I had come to know. It wasn’t until I visited the Salvador Dali museum in St. Petersburg, Florida, which holds the largest collection of his work outside of Europe, that I had chosen a favorite artist that I will forever and always continue to be inspired by. Dali was a king of surrealism, and a master of transforming dreams into something visible.

Like many other pieces of art, Dali had a story to tell. He was born May 11, 1904, in Figueres, Spain. He grew up spoiled by his parents, being that Dali had a brother also named Salvador who died previous to his birth. As Dali grew older, he was allowed to set up a studio in his house, where he would sit in solitude absorbing the workings of his imagination and developing a narcissistic view of himself. In school, he withdrew himself from everything around him, refused to pay attention, and instead focused on the stains on the classroom ceiling turning them into images which he saw clearly, “as if they had been cast by a motion picture projector.” Dali was then transferred to secondary school, in which his actions grew rather bizarre. He became aggressive towards weaker students, and he at one point even threw himself down a flight of stairs in order to gain the attention of those around him.

Dali’s parents had him move in with some family friends, the Pichots, where Dali would become fascinated with the work of Paris based impressionist painter Ramon Pichot, and in turn this would reveal Dali’s talents. After his talents were revealed, he became enrolled in the San Fernando Academy of Art in Madrid (1921). During this time he experimented with cubism, futurism, and purism. However, with his growing confidence, he was expelled from the Academy after announcing his refusal to be examined in the theory of art and declaring the examiners incompetent to judge him.

Dali’s first solo exhibition was held in Barcelona (1925), and it was here that he gained the attention of other artists. He even caught the eye of Pablo Picasso, and they later met for the first time in Paris. Soon after this, however, Dali became depressed over his inability to find a lover, and plunged into madness. He suffered full hallucinations and had occasional bouts of hysterical laughter. Despite this he threw himself into painting and attempted to transcribe the images in his mind. All of this changed when he was introduced to Gala. “His manic personality alarmed her, yet she sensed a boyish helplessness beneath the surface. One day she took Dali by the hand and silenced his fanatical laughter for a moment. Dali saw a way out of his abyss and fell at her feet.” Gala became his muse, and later his wife. She became the subject for many, many, many of his pieces of art such as the Portrait of Gala or one of my personal favorites Gala Contemplating the Mediterranean Sea which at Twenty Meters Becomes the Portrait of Abraham Lincoln (which at twenty meters does actually look like a portrait of Abraham Lincoln).

Dali once said, “the only difference between a madman and me is that I am not mad.” This statement in itself sounds mad, but in order to become a surrealist this is the sort of mindset you need to have. It’s statements like this that built Dali into the inspiration for modern day surreal artists.