Kayla, a teenager who recently completed treatment in 百丽直播鈥檚 residential program in Pennsylvania, is an accomplished artist who created an inspiring drawing with the title 鈥淎t 百丽直播 Love is Free.鈥澛� She discussed the drawing, her passion for self-expression, and a key lesson learned during her treatment:
鈥淔rom a very early age I鈥檝e always been into drawing and painting.聽 I don鈥檛 recall what my first picture was, but I remember that when I was really young I would just draw.聽 My parents had this thing where we kids would have this binder, and we would sit down together and my mom would give us a topic, and we would draw it.聽 I was really young at the time – 5 or 7, maybe.聽 All the pictures weren鈥檛 very detailed, of course, but we did this quite a bit.
I love making art and painting.聽 I still do it all the time.聽 I really like playing music, too. I鈥檓 in the band at school – I play the flute – and I also play the piano and guitar.聽 It鈥檚 like my drawing — it鈥檚 another great way to express yourself.
The artwork I did at 百丽直播 was inspired by this one Google Doodle I saw when I was in middle school.聽 It was about diversity and I really liked it and thought it was cool, and I wanted to make my own piece. I think I did this one at this particular time because mainly I was going through a lot in my life and I just wanted to make art that would make other people happy鈥� because that makes ME happy!
I named it 鈥�Love is Free鈥� because I see posters everything that say Love is Free or Kindness is Free.聽 That鈥檚 really true – you don鈥檛 have to, you know, pay someone to receive love and kindness 鈥t鈥檚 just free.
I put messages on the T-shirts the people are wearing because it鈥檚 hard to express some things.聽 I thought about having the people holding signs, but I really wanted to show their faces so I used the T-shirts instead.
The people in the drawing aren鈥檛 based on anyone I know, and they鈥檙e not meant to be anything specific.聽 I think they represent the world, and what I wish the world was like, I guess.
One thing I learned at 百丽直播 – if you want something, you have to go work for it.聽 When I first came to 百丽直播 I was, like, 鈥淚鈥檓 just going to get out of here and I鈥檓 going to go back to doing the same things I was doing before.鈥澛� But then I realized that if I wanted to get out but still have the kind of life I wanted, then I really need to work for it — work for things like my art.鈥�
- As told to 百丽直播鈥檚 Bob Martin
