"You think you're an Artist, or something?"

I shared a room with my older sister, Gayle, when I was a kid. She started working as an artist very young, and was doing professional portraiture in oils and pastels when she was still in high school. An area of our bedroom was her work studio, with an easel in the corner by the window and her art supplies on the dresser. The smell of turpentine and fixative and paint are a big part of my memories of those years. Of course, I wasn't supposed to get into her art supplies, but I had a problem remembering that part.

I remember picking out a few sticks of pastels from the big pastel box and adding some festive little "touches" of my own to one of her portraits-in-progress. I'm pretty sure I only did it once...such activities carried consequences, as one might imagine. I also enjoyed smooshing her kneaded erasers into interesting shapes, or giving them to my dog who thought they were real treats...sort of like doggy chewing gum. Yum.

Mostly I loved sitting for hours looking through her art books. I especially liked the lesson books that showed the tools and step-by-step processes needed for different styles of painting and drawing.

My own first attempt at drawing (at age four, I think) hadn't been much of a success. Oh, the nice crayon colors were bright enough, and I thought it was quite good, myself. But it seemed that my mom wasn't as impressed with my contemporary, non-representational, 2-dimensional, abstract design skills as I was, so she made me wash it off the living room wall with a bucket of hot, soapy water. I might note here that crayons in those days weren't as "washable" as they are today, if one scrubbed hard enough to get the crayon off, the wall paint came with it...yikes! It was at least another 25 years before I painted on a wall again (hey, I finally got permission!).

I tried my hand at abstract design again at some later point (oh...maybe only a week or two later, but when you're a kid, time isn't something you consciously measure), using a white chenille bedspread as a canvas and black shoe polish as the paint....oooh! Pretty! I think that was when I decided that I really liked the look of black on white. Though, once again, mom was less enthusiastic than I'd hoped.

My attempts at creativity didn't meet with much enthusiasm in school either. Sheeesh, every body's a critic, ya know? Adults just seemed to get themselves in a waddle over the silliest little things, and my little "doodles" were generally frowned upon.

One teacher in particular always seemed to take things personally. She'd shake the paper with the offending drawings in the air and roar, "You think you're an artist, or something? Well, young lady, not in MY classroom!". Eventually I figured out that drawing little cartoon portraits of my teachers on my spelling homework might be unwise. Teachers were apparently overly sensitive about that stuff.

As the school years moved on I was asked that annoying 'You think you're an artist, or something?' question a lot. There never seemed to be a safe answer. If I said 'yes', I was being "smart" (as in: "Don't get smart with me, young lady!"). If I said 'no', I was then asked what I "thought" I was doing...which invariably led into dangerous, swampy territory. There are no safe answers to such slippery questions when you're a kid. That's when I decided that the only possible answer to any question a teacher might ask was, "Um...I dunno." If you say "I dunno" often enough, teachers will eventually supply you with answers. THEN you'll know exactly what they want you to say the next time they ask (though sometimes they seemed to find that annoying too).

Teachers always did seem a little flighty and unpredictable to me.

My 5th grade teacher once remarked - after giving back a math test that she couldn't grade, because I'd turned all of the numbers into little people (and houses and trees and animals) instead of proper answers - that it would be great if I could just focus all of that creative energy into Something Useful.

Hmmm, turning doodles into Something Useful??? Holy cow! What a concept! What a challenge!

And that's what I've been doing ever since. Attempting on a daily basis to turn my lowly doodles into something useful. Do I always accomplish that? Once in a while it happens, yes.

So...do I think I'm some kind of an artist, or something? Uh...I dunno. The truth is that what I do most likely falls into the "or something" category, but it's always fun.