I know that one of my close friends already has a portrait from Paweł on his wall. There's much more of them, for sure, just look and order a portrait of yourself or a close one.

Time to ask Paweł, what is it with his drawings?

Paweł Gawenda:

Ever since I was a child, I used to doodle in notebooks at school a lot. Most of the time I was scolded by my teachers because “a notebook is not a sketchbook”. I often drew video games, comic and film characters at home too. I wasn't too good at it from the start but you could tell I had a knack for it.

PeSzy: As a visual arts graduate – I can assure you it's talent backed by precision and patience! What was it like afterwards?

Paweł Gawenda:

When I was about 13, I stopped drawing for 10 years. That's when I discovered my passion for weigh training and especially armwrestling. Between 22 and 23, I had a year-long break from training for health reasons and that's when I started to look for art as a substitute for armwrestling. Then after half a year, I had another break (for one year) until my friend who had known I could draw asked me to draw some caricatures for him. I took it up out of curiosity and my motivation has come back instantly, it's been over a year since then.

At the moment it rarely happens for me not to draw a few hours a day. I now treat it as my main source of income and have ambitious plans for myself in the future.

PeSzy: And where's sport in all that?

Paweł Gawenda:

When it comes to my sports background, when I was 6 or 7 I picked up... chess. And I was actually good at it. I still remember becoming the best player at a school tournament, aged 7. I went to competitions in Ciechanów as well as the entire county. I have a closetful of chess cups. When I graduated from middle school, the passion somehow disappeared. I only played soccer like every kid, at school or outside after school. Before I got into armwrestling for real, I trained calisthenics for a while – I think it gave me a lot. I used to be a skinny, weak kiddo before and it offered me a lot of strength.

PeSzy: What are your armwrestling achievements?

Paweł Gawenda:

I don't have many achievements in armwrestling as of now. The biggest one would have to be my gold in 2017 in juniors under 21, right arm. I'm still waiting for a medal in seniors but I won't give up. My current best is the 4^th place with the left arm at the Polish Cup in 2017 in under 78 kg. At the 2020 and 2021 Polish Championships I was the 5^th with the left arm so I'm slowly getting ot the podium and working hard to get there.

PeSzy: Thanks for the conversation!

A reminder – you can order a drawing from Paweł. A few more sentences, if I may. There aren't many artists that are also fit and love combat sports.

When I was talking to Paweł – I thought of two people: Franciszek Starowieyski and... Caravaggio.

I'm just going to say: I had the pleasure of meeting Franciszek. I know Paweł. So I'm no longer bummed about not knowing that Caravaggio guy...