To Infinity, and Beyond

8:30AM feels late to me now, but in college it was the crack of dawn. Nonetheless, I took Art History at that early hour so I could pack all my classes into two days. Every Tuesday and Thursday morning during the second semester of sophomore year, I chugged a thermos of coffee and stuffed a Pop Tart in my mouth as I rushed into class. My hair was a bird’s nest and I wore whatever was easiest to grab from my dresser. I fought to stay awake despite the interesting material and the professor who was nothing but wonderful.

Class was loaded with tit-for-tat guidelines for project after project. Then for our final project, when we had free reign: present any artwork in our 1,000 page textbook to the class. I flipped through the book until I found...

Her.

Yayoi Kusama would never let anyone confine her to a box. She began creating art as soon as she could hold a pen, all while hiding deep in the grassy fields and gardens of her family’s countryside home. Her parents, however, often disapproved of her artistic endeavors, as they wanted her to walk, talk, act, and dress like their vision of a lady. Yayoi felt pressure to be a mold that she could not conform to, and sped her anxiety, depression, and suicidal ideation into motion.

Yayoi rushed to paint and draw. She watched her back as she created environments that were similar to the ones she saw in front of her. When Yayoi’s mother caught her and hit her, it raised Yayoi’s fears and anxiety. But fear didn’t stop her, and she continued to hide and create.

Even though Yayoi was afraid, making art brought her peace. She loved getting lost and not having to think about her mother. Creating art became her escape.

In her dreams, she began to have heavy hallucinations. They were filled with colors, light, odd shapes, and especially dots. She stopped creating environments similar to the real world, but rather that of her dream world.

Yayoi’s parents were constantly at war with each other. Her father had many affairs, and Yayoi’s mother secretly watched from the window as Yayoi’s father as he would engage with his other lovers. Curious as to what her mother was doing, Yayoi started watching too, and soon became repulsed by sex.

Her parent’s fighting escalated, and their contempt towards her got worse every day. She craved safety but didn’t have the means to run away. The only thing that provided her peace continued to be her art.

Yayoi made a deal with her parents: if she attended art school, she would take the etiquette lessons that her parents so desired. They agreed, but Yayoi never attended a single etiquette class.

Yayoi was ready to immerse herself and sharpen her skills. Her instructors in this new and promising environment wanted her to follow the rules of traditional Japanese art. They did not approve of how abstract her art was and how it didn’t confine to the rules.

Still, she created.

It was getting late and finals were coming in fast. I spent a long time just staring at the walls before finally studying. The librarians were doing their rounds again while they peered at me in my lone study room while I attempted to smile. I checked off my literature studying and moved onto Art History. I rubbed my eyes as I kept looking through my textbook.

When I turned to the fateful page, I saw the beautiful array of Kusama’s Infinity Mirrors. An overwhelming sense of joy and wonder came upon me. I thought I was looking at a fairy pond only to learn that it was a room of mirrors with lights hanging from the ceiling and floor.

I became obsessed with the Infinity Mirrors, how they were so straightforward yet complex.I changed my background on all of my social media and on my desktop to a version of the Infinity Mirrors. At my last job, I changed my monitor to the Infinity Mirrors. Everyone who saw stopped and looked, mesmerized by the utter beauty and joy the mirrors gave off.

During the same semester, Yayoi Kusama brought an exhibit to the Hirshhorn Museum that included ceramic pumpkins, an empty white room where you could add a colorful sticker, and of course, the Infinity Mirrors. I tried to get a free ticket so I could go during spring break, but they were sold out in minutes. I was envious of the people who went just so they could have a nice photo on Instagram, not because they appreciated her art. Why didn’t I get to see her exhibit over the people who would never look twice at Yayoi otherwise?

Seeing the Infinity Mirrors in photos for the first time took me back to being four years old again. Back then, I was in a weird spot. At school I was bullied by my peers; at home, I was judged by my family. There was no place I felt completely safe. The only thing I could do to take my mind off of it was to play with Barbies and color.

One day, while my dad took a long nap, my mom and I took a long drive. We came across the local community center, where we saw my friend Alexandra’s mom.

Alexandra’s mom saw me and smiled. “She’s in there,” she said, pointing to a long set of mirrors with the ugly side facing out.

I walked into the room and saw: the slippers, the leotards, the movements. I waved to my friend as my eyes grew as wide as the moon. I was mesmerized by their effortlessness and gracefulness. They raised their arms and lowered their legs in sync.

I went to the rack of dance shoes for rent. The dance teacher’s assistant kept an eye on me. I pointed to a pair of tap shoes.

“Can I?” I asked.

She looked behind her back, before winking and nodding.

By the end of class, I was tapping my feet on the floor. My mom was delightfully surprised, and she agreed to sign me up for classes.

I looked forward to Saturday mornings. I put my tap or ballet shoes on and spent the hour floating and clacking my feet across the room. I forgot all about being judged when I danced. I could simply exist in the peace of my own mind (with my dance instructor’s voice in the background) and be myself. I looked forward to the end of the year recital. It was the one time a year I could wear makeup and a fun costume.

Performing in front of a lot of people never fazed me. Not only were the house lights dark on the audience, but I became another entity the second I stepped onstage. I became lost in the music and the dance, it was the first time I felt a euphoria wash over me. It didn’t matter what I was going through, I was able to escape everything and do the one thing I loved.

As the years went by, I started having an instructor who reminded me of my bullies. She never hid her frustration, one wrong move and she would yell for the music to stop, go directly to the person who messed up, and scream in their face for five minutes. When it was a group mistake, she walked to the center of the room and growled.

“Why can’t you ladies get it right? We’re going to stay here as long as it takes. I don’t care if you have plans later!”

I found every excuse to skip class or pretend to feel sick. I missed an entire month due to finessing alibis until I finally felt ready to return. I was behind a few counts on some of the choreography and froze for an entire section because I didn’t know it.

“See Julie! This is what happens when you don’t come to class. Ugh! This is so frustrating. Thanks for letting the rest of the class down.”

My lip quivered as negative thoughts began to flood in.

“Oh wow. Now you’re crying. Go see your mom outside, since you’re such a baby.”

She never thought I was good at dancing, so why should I? All of the other girls were skinny and gorgeous. I knew I had a protruding belly, which I was sure they all laughed at behind my back. A feeling similar to a knife being twisted in my stomach and my guts falling out rose in me. It was the same feeling that haunted me at school and under my parents’ severe eye. The dance studio no longer felt safe. I begged my mom to unenroll me.

That was when I discovered theater. It allowed me to escape even more than dance ever had . In theater, I could become another character entirely. Plus, it helped that rehearsals were long and frequent. When I stepped onstage, I didn’t see an audience whatsoever. Rather, I saw the world that the script required me to be in. Onstage, I wasn’t surrounded by castmates, but other characters.

While I loved disappearing into a different character, the people I worked with were a part of an uncharted territory. I was introverted and quiet; they were extroverted and loud. It was hard to fit in. This was especially true in high school, when a handful of my fellow castmates made it a point to exclude me. It didn’t matter that the rehearsals were long anymore, I was in a consistent stay of unacceptance. I didn’t know how or where I could be myself.

I came across screenwriting during my sophomore year of high school. There was a challenge called Script Frenzy that encouraged entrants to write a full-length script. As I sat down to write it, my hands floated across the keyboard like they had when I’d danced, a time when there had still been a way to escape. I became the characters as I wrote them, just like I had in theater. Here, I was the master of my own destiny of the world, of the characters, of their journeys. As I wrote, I forgot about the real world and became one with the imaginary one I created.

Compared to all the forms of art I had pursued, this one made the most sense. Two years later, I was accepted to film school.

Yayoi was in a constant state of tension, wanting to be accepted but no one gave that to her but herself. She stayed true to her art, passions, and desires. While the opposition was distressing, she found her own voice and stayed true to herself.

With all the unrest at home, Yayoi dreamed of going far away from her parents, her art school, and the confines placed on women.

Despite a few successful years in Japan, Yayoi no longer could accept the traditions everyone wanted her to follow. She had to go somewhere where she could be free and not judged, and started to look into the United States of America.

She reached out to artists like Georgia O’Keefe about migrating to the US. To Yayoi’s surprise, Georgia responded to her letter and gave her the courage to make the journey across the Pacific Ocean. Yayoi reached out to a distant relative who helped her find a sponsor in Seattle. The second she could, Yayoi packed her bags, with sixty silk kimonos, thousands of her paintings, as much cash as Japanese law allowed, and moved to America. She knew little to no English and no one else in the US. There were few people on her flight, and there was a constant storm going on. Not only was there rain and thunder, but the uncertainty in Yayoi’s heart made the ride uneasy.

Yayoi stayed in Seattle for a year before moving to New York City. The Big Apple was hell compared to Seattle. Her money disappeared and she spent what she could on materials. Before long, her funds were depleted, sleeping on a door for a bed and eating chestnuts for dinner. The only thing that kept her mind off the stress was painting and drawing, The floors would be covered in easels and nets and she experienced neurotic episodes whenever she wasn’t able to create.

Yayoi visited the Empire State Building whenever she was feeling down. As she stood hundreds of floors above the ground, she watched the sparkling skyline and all the tiny cars on the street. They looked like the little dots from her dreams. Despite the stress and hardship she experienced, she had the opportunity to start anew. She knew her possibilities were endless.

While Yayoi had free reign over this new territory, she still struggled with her mental illnesses. Her psychotic episodes accelerated her to the hospital, so much so that the EMTs recognized her. The doctors referred her to a mental hospital, but she painted at all hours of the day instead. Creating art was the only thing that kept her sane.

Her first exhibition in New York consisted of five pieces. From afar, her paintings looked like blank canvases, but once the viewer got closer they saw intricate details of dots, laces patterns, nets, and microcosmic lights, similar to the cars she saw from the top of the Empire State building. She received critical acclaim at last, and she started touring around the country with her work.

This was happening in the 50s when female artists were not allowed to have solo exhibitions. Yayoi was one of the first to break that glass ceiling.

In the late 90s, Yayoi found herself working on an extensive piece that had started out as a canvas painting, but soon expanded onto the floors and the walls. She realized that her art did not have to be limited to the page, and started transforming more and more of her work into livable environments. Thus, the Infinity Room was born.

Five hours after college graduation, I hopped on a plane with two suitcases and moved to Los Angeles. Many people thought that I was crazy, commenting how scary it was to move to a large city not knowing many people. I didn't really think about it. I just knew I had to be in Los Angeles, and I couldn’t wait any longer than I already had. As an intern there the summer prior, I was drawn to the energy, ambition, and culture of the city beyond the smog and traffic.

My graduating class and I ran around LA the week after graduation. We met alumni and professional contacts of faculty members—from huge production companies to large talent agencies, ate at amazing restaurants, showcased our thesis films, and drank every night as a last hurrah. But after I left my hotel and got to my new place, I realized that was it. I was in the real world now.

I sat alone in my tiny Hollywood apartment as I applied for jobs while my roommates were at work. Every week I had interviews, but by the end of the month I didn’t have any offers. I asked my roommate at the time if I could work at the bar-restaurant-arcade she worked at and still look for entertainment jobs in the interim. I snagged that job easily, but the second I got my first schedule, the entertainment interviews stopped.

I was embarrassed. I saw several of my classmates easily snagging awesome jobs. My old insecurities returned: was I cut out for this industry? Maybe I didn’t deserve to be here.

My mental health took a steep downhill. It was hard to feel normal, I was simply stuck in a funk and couldn’t find happiness in anything. Working at the bar-restaurant-arcade made it worse. Not only was I in a job I hated, but the customers I dealt with whipped my depression and anxiety into hyperspeed. They yelled and condescended to me when I couldn’t give them a refund or find their server. One lady made it a point to write a nasty Yelp review about me, one guy even threw a beer in my face. By some miracle, I still showed up to work.

I avoided logging into my bank account, fearing that I was always running out of money. Anytime I spent on something that was “frivolous” like clothing or takeout food, I would curse at myself for not saving it in case I truly did run out.

It was hard to find joy in doing anything I loved. I was too scared to write, and networking gave me anxiety attacks. Sometimes I would show up to a networking event and leave five minutes after it started. In college I hiked across campus and went to the gym five days a week, and now, even with a gym on the same floor as my unit, I would often avoid it. When I did go, all the negative thoughts would swirl in my head. The demons would mock me in between sets.

“Ha! You can’t do anything right.”

“You’re not cut out for this. You should’ve known that! You should’ve just gone to an in-state college and gotten a 9-5 job. Then you’d at least have money.”

“No one likes you. You’re so ugly.”

“Just go back home. You’re a failure.”

They sounded like my former dance teacher and the kids who excluded me in theater. That terrible feeling… the knife in my stomach, returned. The lack of safety swelled inside of me. It became hard to leave my apartment.

On one of my days off I went to The Broad, a popular art museum in Downtown Los Angeles. The attendant was slammed with other reservations and demanding patrons to see the room. She apologized profusely when she told me the list was full, but I told her it was okay and I would try again another time. I went to the gift shop and bought an Infinity Mirror mug.

I returned home on a high. As I lay on my bed drank tea out of my new mug, I noticed my new laptop out of the corner of my eye. I remembered that I had a TV pilot that already had a draft written. I whipped it open and started typing, and the feeling that I first had while writing returned. It didn’t feel like a chore, it felt fun. I poured my stress and anxieties in the lead character. She was scared and unsure like me, but she had a potential that had yet to be unlocked. The lead and I were doing all the right things to advance our careers, but it just wasn’t our time yet. I was at peace once more.

Working at the bar-restaurant-arcade was tough, but I was thankful for the flexible hours that allowed me to write. A coworker referred me to work event staff at the Dolby Theatre (the official venue for the Oscars!), and I put my background check in the first day they were sent out.

The morning of the Oscars, I woke up early and took my time getting dressed and doing my makeup. I drank two cups of coffee from my Infinity Mirrors mug. I collected all my credentials and essentials for the day and walked over to the theater. I passed through multiple security checkpoints and had to stop gate by gate. The final gate opened and there I was: the red carpet.

My heart exploded. A sense of gratitude and pride washed over me. I was at Hollywood’s hottest event of the year. I had always dreamed of attending the Oscars, but I never thought I would get to be there so quickly. I passed everyone in their gowns and tuxedos and got to the second security checkpoint. I was in.

The first few hours were a breeze as people gradually arrived. The show didn’t start until 5PM; several people just wanted to look at the stage. At 4:59PM, everyone decided they wanted to sit down. I shouted and pointed directions until the doors closed. The rest of the show was fairly manageable. I stood shoulder-to-shoulder with tons of Hollywood’s hottest stars.

By the end of the show, I was tired but rejuvenated. I’d been at the Oscars. Sure, I had struggled to get the job I wanted, but I was exactly where I needed to be. I made it a point to be more forgiving to myself and was so thankful for the crazy year I had up until that point. I returned home grateful and more motivated than ever.

I stood on the roof of my building. While LA doesn’t have many skyscrapers, it felt like my personal Empire State Building. I could see all of LA (other than the parts covered by smog) and the town simply smiled and sparkled at me. The lights all looked like little dots. I was invincible.

Two weeks later, I quit my restaurant job to temp for the Writers Guild of America.

While Yayoi Kusama and I are from completely different worlds and walks of life, we aren’t too different from each other. We both found escape and sanity in the arts despite what everyone else told us. Our journeys across the pond contained tons of risks, but resulted in more rewards. Yayoi and I found our rooftops where we felt undefeatable and found inspiration. No matter what, neither of us gave up on our dreams and desires. The world is our oyster.

In the past several years, Yayoi Kusama has had continued success all over the world. She has since returned to Japan. Japan always was her true home, despite feeling so tied down and restricted. She often feels like time is getting away from her, and that sensation was especially true in New York. She hardly keeps in touch with the artists she met in New York. Being Japan helps her live in the moment.

At the young age of 91, she still receives invitations for solo exhibitions and does her best to keep up with the high demand. Yayoi has no plans of stopping. After all, she is in the prime of her life.

Yayoi still battles with her mental health and is housed at a psych ward in Japan. Psychology and psychiatry were not well accepted when she was young, and she used to often feel alone and overwhelmed. The hallucinations and visions came at times when she was at her worst. Because it helps alleviate her mental illnesses, Yayoi is allowed to go across the street to an art studio where she makes art during the day.

Despite all she had been through, Yayoi knew from a young age what her true passions were. She didn’t allow anything to stop her and took the challenges as they came. She lives a life as colorful and beautiful as the art she creates, and still makes at an age most people would stay in their Florida vacation home.

Yayoi Kusama’s artwork has spoken volumes to me. From the first sight of her work, she transported me to a time when things were simple and I had an incredulous sense of wonder. I,too, found a home in the arts. Creating — whether it was dancing, acting, or writing — gave me a space to express myself in a way that was celebrated rather than judged. Once my safety felt compromised, I pursued other art forms until I found the one that made the most sense.

In the midst of my art and soul searching, Yayoi inspired me to never give up and to fearlessly embrace the things I truly love.

The most common theme in Yayoi Kusama’s art is limitlessness. Whether it’s dots, nets, lights or mirrors, there is no visual end to her paintings or installations. Yayoi’s art encourages me to know there are no limits to what I can do. My first few months in Los Angeles were hard, and I got so discouraged, believing I didn’t belong. It shouldn't have taken the Oscars to finally realize my worth, but sometimes we need those little reminders to keep us going.

I just wrapped on a Warner Brothers movie. I’m still pinching myself. I’m excited to continue chasing my dreams, just as Yayoi did. To infinity, and beyond.