The Time I Received an Artist’s Invitation
I said yes and even brought an appetizer
As artists we all had that one person or event that helped us see our own creative potential and encouraged us to continue our craft. Maybe it was the time your English professor read your essay out loud in the 8th grade or it was your school’s theatre club where you found a sense of belonging on stage.
However, most of the time we are facing our inner critics, starving for a sense of authenticity, all while competing against dollar sign obligations. In moments where my why for creating is just an echo in the distance, a listless shadow, looking at this post card comes in handy.
When I was eight years old I was obsessed with drawing portraits of faces. I loved the many details that went into sketching eyes, lips, and noses, and I used to share my work so freely with others. One summer afternoon I was drawing a portrait of my neighbor, Maddie, being sure to capture her short blond pixie haircut and piercing blue eyes.
I was quite happy with how it turned out from what I remember. Maddie’s parents were too and asked if they could show this portrait to a family friend who owned an illustration studio. Within a few days I received this beautiful postcard in the mail.
This postcard felt like an invitation to create, like I was summoned from some drawing deity to finally start feeling what had been so invalidated for most of my life. The postcard punctuated my very existence. From that moment onward I decided I was an artist forevermore. I never met the sender, Mark Schuler, never went to any of his classes, but he gave me so much confidence as a kid to keep exploring whatever it was my heart yearned for.
My artist’s invitation as seen above has been worn and weathered down throughout the years. It’s travelled through scrapbooks, been taped to walls, and junk journals, and yet again it has surfaced since my most recent apartment move.
The many times I have run from it, stuffed it down, and scrapped it entirely — but the way it keeps finding me! I am going to buy a frame once I finish this article. It will be placed square and upright on the wall above my couch where most of my ideas come to me these days.
I quit drawing faces after high school. And I’ve quit many other art forms like painting, singing in coffee shops, and even competitive Irish dance. But no matter what form I’m choosing as the vehicle for expression I am going to keep saying yes to the artist’s invitation. I’m going to keep saying, “put me on the list, party of one. I’ll bring an appetizer and give you my best act!”
Is this what I’m trying to get at…that art is actually like a huge party? Maybe it is or maybe it’s more about what art should feel like — a grand celebration and sharing what you have with others.
When drawing dropped off I found that words came really easily for me, at least when I punched some keys trusting they would show up one way or another through the white void. This is what I’ve got right now and I’m sure Mark Schuler would want me to keep going with this.
I’m quite positive there’s an infinite number of invites out there even if we leave our craft for periods of time or move on to other fields of work. The guest list is very inclusive and is not only reserved for Pollocks and Rembrandts. There is nothing more we have to do other than say yes.
However, when nature calls you, when bliss taps you on the shoulder, and when music makes its bid, saying yes comes with a different kind of price. Because when we accept the artist’s invitation that means we are also saying yes upon two conditions, or so I am figuring out along the way.
Condition 1. Saying yes means facing your demons.
When I say yes to creating anything I am sure to meet my opponent head on. I flip my laptop open and there is the white screen. I think it laughs at me sometimes for writing down anything at all. My demons go by the names of shame and fear.
But someone today told me we are doing others a disservice by not sharing our creations and giving people the opportunity to respond and grow through the art we make. So when I look at Schuler’s postcard, I think about the eight year old girl who was able to freely share her work with him and how this must have been to both our benefit.
Condition 2. Saying yes means you will lose things.
The more I write these days the more I am beginning to uncover hard truths. A friend recently explained to me how creating anything is like asking a question. Writing is my creative vehicle and its answers many of my questions. It’s honest and sometimes hard to take.
If I say yes I may lose favor among those who decline their invite. If I say yes I may lose the golden plaque society gave me if I decide to move towards an unconventional career path. If I say yes I lose all comfort and certainty.
So after I wrote down these two conditions and absorbed them for an hour I decided to go to Target for the sole purpose of buying this picture frame. It took me thirty minutes to pick it out! I also spent another thirty minutes stressing out and trying to talk myself into hammering nails into my bare wall.
As you can tell I do not like taking even the smallest risks! What I learned from doing all this is that I’m more comfortable typing out my feelings onto a blank white screen than I am putting a single half inch piece of metal into the drywall of my living room. I think this confirms that writing is the best path for me.
Once I took the risk I was actually really pleased with how my artist’s invitation was looking. I felt moved to even decorate the little ledge with some rocks I collected from a river in British Columbia and a Palo Santo stick to keep those creative demons away.
Little does this Mark Schuler guy know that I have made his art into a shrine, that I went ahead and took the leap and agreed to lose everything. I feel that this piece of artwork, a constant invitation to create, is the most invariable thing we have.
What’s funny is that as I look closer at the postcard, the little girl has this look of shame in her eyes. It seems she has scribbled on the wall and done a very bad thing.
Making art feels like that sometimes, like maybe this is just god awful, irreverent, and silly. Yet, it’s these very emotions that drive us to create things which are worth far more than what we keep in our bill folds.
So no matter what your artist’s invitation looks like I hope together we can encourage each other to say yes!
