Something real.

Write.

Somedays I am gripped by a need to write something real. Not that everything I’ve written on here isn’t real. It is. But sometimes I feel the need to go a bit deeper. More real. More true. More vulnerable?

So today is that day. This is a bit longer than you might be used to, but sometimes real is like that.

This is a story about being an artist.

Everyone has a primary language. A way they best communicate with and understand the world around them. A method to share who they are. A medium to explain the world to themselves and others.

From an early age my language was art. All kinds. As a child I loved and explored it all. Watercolor. Tempera paint. Acrylic paint. Clay. Glass. Print making. Wood block prints. Linoleum cut prints. Letterpress. Sculpture. I tried it all. Loved it all.

When I was little I played with art and it was small. Small pages and papers. Little sculptures. As I grew the art became medium. Then big.

Then BIG. Like BIG BIG.

I used up all the space trying to share what I saw. Stretching to the edges. Ceiling to floor. Bottom to top. Side to other side.

The world was so big. My ideas were so big. They filled hallways and were painted on doors. They required ladders and step stools. I had to reach so far, to the edges, to touch all the corners of the canvas. And still it didn’t feel big enough.

And then I turned 18. It was time to grow up. Time to find other ways to communicate. Time to box it all up. Art was a past time. A hobby. It was not an approved outcome moving forward. Art went into a large cardboard box. The kind you use for moving. Double tape on the bottom. Messy handwritten note on the side – “ART” in black Sharpie.

Box it all up. Learn a new way to communicate and be in the world. And get serious. About life. Be responsible. So I did.

And in boxing it all up I became smaller. And smaller. And smaller. I had to make room for the new ways of communicating. Of being. And the new ways took up a lot of space. And time.

I learned nursing. And bill paying. And mortgages. And home repairs. And lawn maintenance. And. And. And. And I kept getting smaller.

The box labelled ART on the side, moved with me from house to house. Life change to life rearrange.

“I’m here,” the box whispered.

“I’m still here. Waiting,” it quietly chanted. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting.

Open me.

“No,” I said.

“I don’t have time for those whispers. I don’t have space.”

I shoved the box further back. Into the closet. The attic. The basement. The least accessible place in my apartment or house. And continued with my responsible, respectable, acceptable, expectable life.

What remained of me fit neatly in everyone’s boxes. And my ART box remained double taped on the bottom. Covered in dust. In the deepest, darkest corner of my house. And soul. Compressed into the space. So small.

Occasionally I would pick up a pencil and doodle on a napkin. Draw on a program. Mindlessly create while waiting for an appointment. My hand working unattached to my heart. Unbidden actions begot from whispers.

And the whispers. They continued.

“I’m here. Open me. Create with me. I’m here. Still. Waiting.”

So I stuffed the box even deeper into the corners. The whispers even deeper into myself. Where I couldn’t hear them even though they were in me. Were from me. Were of me.

I don’t have time for this. I don’t have space. I’m learning a new language or languages. How to communicate and be in the world in a medium that is expected of me. In chart notes and texts and small talk and reports. And it’s acceptable and respectable. And so very very hard. So very foreign to me.

I have to work very hard at it. And stay focused. I can’t listen to those whispers. They distract from what I’m supposed to be doing. All. The. Time.

I learned to “pass” – to be something I wasn’t quite. I put on the costume day after day. I got good at it. Really good. I forgot. I forgot I used to communicate and be someone else. For a long time. A very long time.

I was responsible. Respectable. Acceptable. Expectable.

But I wasn’t really me. The real me.

And the box kept whispering.

“I’m here. Still. Take me out.”

Make art. Paint. Draw. Create.

I’m here. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting.

And eventually the whispers became more than whispers. While I continued to live my responsible life. Speaking in my other mediums and languages. Passing through life. Small but acceptable.

Make ART.

Take me out. CREATE.

The decades passed. And the whispers that weren’t whispers anymore became more insistent. They became illnesses and symptoms and stop signs in my life.

CREATE. Now. NOW.

Until they could not be ignored.

And finally. I dug out the  box. And opened it.

Into the margins of my responsible life trickled pieces that had been hidden for decades. A paint brush. A palette. Canvases. Color. Texture. The language I had forgotten.

And slowly I returned to the language I love best. Art.

As a way to communicate. To understand. To bring together. To make bridges. To be human. My language. My gift.

Today the box doesn’t whisper anymore. Instead there is a hum in my head. Singing now, not whispering, make art. Create. Make art. Create.

And finally, many decades later. I am listening to it. Still responsible. Respectable. Acceptable. Yet returning to my first language all the same.

Paint.

What does art look like when you’ve been small for 30 years and you’re re-discovering yourself? Apparently it looks like this right now…

Did my art look like this 30 years ago? No. But 30 years is a long time to hold something inside. It makes sense it would look different now. These are corners of canvases I’m working on currently (not even the whole canvas). Small snapshots of something bigger that is evolving both on the canvas and within me.

Is this what my art will look like going forward? Who knows. For now, I am open to the whispers. The sounds. The colors. Mostly the feeling of having a paintbrush and a bare canvas. And the space to be less small. There is so much to say about this world and life and so many colors and ways to express it. Thank you for joining me on the ride.

This blog is a hand-crafted, heart-centered piece of work written by a human (not AI). The writing is my own, as are the mistakes and (inevitable) typos. Thank you for supporting a human who writes things.

Any books or products mentioned in this blog are things I wanted to share. I don’t receive any compensation. They are simply things I liked and/or choose to write about.