Artist

Artist

I am an artist. Not your typical… I tried to be typical. All through school, art was my favorite. I did it all, color, water color, crayon, pencil, clay, origami, sculptures… you name it, I tried it. But the only one I really enjoyed were my plain line drawings. Apparently boring.

I wanted to be in color! I just had no feelings for it. No, not color blind, just color ‘I don’t get it.’ I love colors, really! I just didn’t care to work with them, and my art teacher was mean enough to give me required colored assignments and then tell me that they were “not up to your abilities!” I just couldn’t seem to find my “abilities.”

It took me years to get over that. I tried painting, I made things for people, I tried to be the artist my art teacher kept telling me I was, but was not living up to. I never really felt good about any of my art. I don’t know which was worse, me failing to feel artistic, or my art teacher trying to open my eyes to my talents. I look at some of my “colored” work now, and I’m embarrassed.

Eventually, I think in my thirties then, I gave up. I had lost all desire for art. I did none. I hadn’t done any, of any kind, in months. As I was home, at my kitchen table, I picked up a pen to write a shopping list, and as I thought of things we needed, I absentmindedly started doodling. The clear black lines from my pen looked so beautiful to me, plus now there was nobody to please, except myself. And I was pleased. I never did get to the store that day.

That’s the day I became an artist.