I wanted to be an artist
All throughout growing up, my dad was always drawing something. Whether that was us, as his children, an idea for a project he was working on, or the sugar bowl, we had drawings of his up in the house and on little bits of paper laying around.
My parents did their best to have us all explore things we wanted to develop into hobbies, such as sports. There was a summer that I tried out tennis for whatever reason. My hand eye coordination is very poor, I don’t have a competitive bone in my body, and there is no motivation for me to chase after a ball. So, as you can imagine, this didn’t go well. I also tried track. This did go better than tennis, by far, but still I wasn’t all in. Instead I would want to go home and draw something, make a little fairy house, or make a friendship bracelet.
I was hooked. So, I spent more time drawing and drawing and drawing. There are an endless amount of sketchbooks left everywhere I have ever been. Everyone knew that I loved to draw and be creative in every way I knew how, so both sets of parents would push me to find my niche.
I have yet to find this niche.
My step mom got me a little rock tumbler, which sounds silly now talking about it, but I loved that thing. I was able to make simple jewelry quickly and easily out of rocks that I had made beautiful. I made all my sisters necklaces and picked out my favorite light purple stone to be my very own piece I got to keep.
My mom got me “how to” drawing books. So many of them. There was a horse one that was my favorite. Through this book, copying the drawings the best I could, I learned a lot about portion and how that looks different in different animals.
My dad would sit down with us while we were having creative time and draw alongside us. I remember a time he drew my little sister and me and I was desperate for him to give it to me, but I didn’t have the guts to tell him. This taught me that the pictures can just be fun cute little pictures, or they can be well practiced and thought out to practical perfection. Art is art.
These moments lead me to go to art school.
I both loved and hated art school. There was so much that I learned, but there was also so much that was crushed. I wish I had kept up the practice of never feeling comfortable in creativity, but pushing myself to new ways of expressing myself.
Thank you parents for pushing me to fall in love with creativity and for allowing me to see it’s important to never be stuck in one way of being creative.
