I believe that children are born creative, but something happens as we get older. Sometimes we can rediscover the inner artist, writer, or musician if we allow ourselves to.
As a child, I loved to draw, color, and create with my hands. My earliest memory is going to the Greenwich House Pottery School in Greenwich Village, New York, and I still have the little jar which much to my dismay, invariably became an ashtray for the adult smokers to use. I also made a paperweight shaped like a bird’s nest. I enjoyed doodling in the borders of my notebooks when I daydreamed in class, which often happened in Algebra classes. I took an elective art class in high school and had one of my ink drawings in a show. However, I lost touch with my artistic muse after high school as I pursued a liberal arts degree and went on to work in the business world and then in education where I taught language arts for over two decades.
It wasn’t until years later, that I found my artist muse again. Oddly enough, it came in the form of an adult school class at the local high school. My mentor Pat, a professional artist, told the class how to draw on the right side of the brain. I fell in love with art all over again after reading the book and taking Pat’s classes. I took the drawing class, both beginner’s and intermediate, the pastel drawing class, and the watercolor classes. Then due to budget cuts, the adult classes were cancelled.
Fortunately for me, I continued searching for ways to do art. For instance, I took up stained glass, making window decorations, boxes, and other home decorative. It proved interesting but painful and sometimes dangerous as you handled harsh chemicals and hot soldering tools. In my writing the book Angels Among Us, my main character Kay Lassiter is a stained glass artist. I drew, literally and figuratively, upon my experiences. There is kind of a parallel between the characters I write about and my own life, but it’s not autobiographical by any means.
I also studied portraiture, although I needed more work in that area. I enjoy drawing, mainly still life and objects. Then I took an online watercolor class during the pandemic which led to an in-person watercolor class, from the same instructor, Karen who inspired me to keep pursuing my arts.
At the moment, I am taking a collage class at the art museum. It’s fun and different, and I get to experiment with all sorts of materials as I create something which appears unified or thematic. When I think about collage, I picture a hodgepodge of unrelated things glued or nailed together. How does that relate to story telling? I’m not completely sure, but I think that perhaps it has to do with the multitude of ideas that head my way, sometimes at once, sometimes at various times, but out there in the cosmos. Eventually, finding their way into some kinds of a story. Like life sometimes, there are so many events at various times on our journey, and they somehow fit into the puzzle which we can only make sense of later, while standing back and observing it all. As I am rediscovering my inner artist, I am rediscovering myself, and that’s an interesting journey.
