The Dawn Came Early
Last night I had a good four hours that I could have used drawing. I haven't really had a lot of time to speak of for art over the holiday and yet I must have spent it staring into space because I couldn't tell you what I did. One of my New Year's resolutions was to manage my time better so that I can draw, but I don't think poor time management is the problem. There is something that physically won't let me draw some days. I just shut down.
I woke up at 5:30am with a realization. I think I must have had a dream, because I felt like I was in the middle of some kind of fight or argument. I woke up in a defensive mood about art and I lay there thinking about it only because my alarm was going to go off in 30 minutes anyway. If I didn't have the alarm set, I probably would have told myself it wasn't important and gone right back to sleep.
I started wondering what I was going to say to students as an art teacher that would make them disregard the thousands of negative things they will hear about art whenever they are drawing. I thought about what I would say to their parents who don't even know that they are crushing the artist in their child every time they say something. And I don't know what to say.
Drawing is the first thing that I dedicated myself to; it takes a lot of patience, diligence, and hard work to become good at drawing. Kids are nervous when they learn to do new things. Usually they have to be coaxed into it or shown that it could be done, like riding a bike. A kid never having seen a bike or never having heard of one wouldn't see one laying there and think, I'm gonna stand that up on those two narrow wheels and get it to balance while rolling it down the street. They typically see someone riding a bike and think, I could do that! Probably because no one ever told them they couldn't. A crayon is a different matter. It is unassuming and fits in your hand and when you move it around against something else it leaves behind a line of color. A way to communicate what we are thinking and feeling that isn't screaming or crying or monosyllabic grunts. It is probably the first thing put in our hands that proves, to us anyway, that we aren't just someone else's creations, but we ourselves can create. How very quickly after being offered that crayon is it taken from us. Don't draw on the wall. Don't draw on the table. Don't draw outside the lines. Don't draw boobs and man parts. Don't. Don't. Don't.
Later comes the you-can't-do-that-until-you-finish-this-first line. It's a beautiful day, don't waste it inside drawing, go out and play. Do your homework first, do your chores first, do everything else first. Even if you have art as a class and it IS homework, it's the art homework you do last because somehow you've already gotten it into your head that it isn't as important. If you do have that moment of rebellion and want to do your art homework first, you may even get a quick lecture about how artists don't make any money and more and now we start adding all the stigmas about artists: they are lazy, just in it for the money, there is no money in art, they are slobs, alcoholics, drug addicts, egomaniacs, something must be wrong with them in the head. Yeah, there is something wrong with us in the head, the voices in there that keep telling us we can't do it. Echoes of every negative thing said, done, or implied about art. These voices that sound like us, but speak with someone else's words, someone telling us we can't.
And we listen. Art homework is done last. But artwork takes the most time and now we are up all night telling ourselves that we work better at the last minute. Now we seem all of those negative things people unconsciously think about artists all because we waited until the last minute. Suddenly it's important just because it IS homework, not because it is art. See, art makes you lazy.
I never knew what to say when adults would ask me what I wanted to be when I grew up. You already knew better than to say I Want To Be An Artist. It seemed like other kids that could just throw a vocation out there had more focus and ambition, yet they spent their time playing and I spent mine drawing. Kids that draw are some of the first to show focus, ambition, dedication, and all those other things that are important to being successful in life. Then we are quickly told that art can be none of those things and therefore we begin to believe that we are none of those things.
And now drawing is the last thing I do after everything else has been done. I can't even think about it if there is laundry to be done or any other mundane task I can think of. When it's time to draw I sit there wondering what it was I forgot to do that day. There is a guilty discomfort in knowing that Now it is time to draw. I must have forgotten to do something. Where is tomorrow's list?
Just do it already.
I am like a fat person that's struggled their entire life to lose weight. Everyone telling me to just do it, but there are a million negative comments in my head telling me I can't and why not, telling me I'm not worth it and why not. One vs. A Million. It doesn't take a genius to see who's going to win that fight more often than not. And every time it wins, it's one more negative voice saying, "see, I told you that you couldn't do it." Each day becomes One Million and One, One Million and Two, One Million and Three...
I'd like to think that this is the time I say I've had enough, I won't listen any more. I know it isn't. You can't fight the fight when you live with someone that is on the other side. It's really hard to admit you are going to lose the Battle of Today and know that you will lose hundreds more before it's done.
I'm glad I wrote all of this but until this is over, I love sleeping in.
XOXOX,
Loch