When I was a kid

In one of the artist communities I’m in I run Community Question Wednesday and this past week I asked “What is your earliest memory of wanting to be an artist?” I’ve been thinking about this question the past few days so here’s a kaleidoscope of memories I have of making and artistic endeavors from when I was a kid.

My artist statement says: I’ve been obsessed with gluing things together since I got my first bottle of Elmer’s glue at five years old. And that’s true! And then there’s also the fact that my love of paper came from a bag of notepads my dad brought home from a work event when I was about six or seven. All these blank pages had so much potential! I didn’t know the word “potential” then but oh boy, did I ever feel it! I can recall that feeling of possibility so clearly here 45 years later. Those are two big key memories but there were so many other ties to creativity over the years. And looking back, becoming an artist seems almost inevitable.

Family ties

My mom sewed clothes and toys, she crocheted and made ceramics. She was crafty and handy in a lot of different ways. So were my aunt and both grandmothers. I had two great grandmothers who where prolific crocheters. My dad worked on cars and fixed a lot of different things. My maternal grandfather was a skilled woodworker. I definitely come from a family that liked to repair things and use and reuse found and saved items. While the kind of “art for art’s sake” making I do was never in the mix when I was a kid, the roots are very much apparent. The skills of thinking about how solve problems and how to take things on hand and use them was very much a part of my childhood.

I don’t actually remember a moment when I thought “I want to be an artist!” It’s more of a general cloud of feeling from my whole childhood. But I also heard over and over again from my family that I had to pick a job where I could make a decent wage. It was less about picking something that I wanted to do that would be fulfilling and more about what would put food on the table and clothes on my back. Which is why I got a graphic design degree instead of a studio art degree. And thankfully, while my partner was in graduate school that graphic design degree did put food on our table. My ridiculously low salary working at an advertising agency made it possible for us to live above the poverty line.

I had achieved the dream! But I do remember very distinctly driving to that job one morning during our busiest time of year, when we were expected to work a minimum of 60 hours a week, and thinking, “Is this all there is? I’ve achieved the dream but it’s so boooooring!!!” I was 24 and trying to figure out how to retire.

Creative writing

I made newspapers with stories about rescued kittens and my cousins’ exploits on their farm. I recorded live action news broadcasts on my cassette recorder with those same cousins. There were still more stories about kittens. (My mom broke down when I was in middle school and let me get a cat.) I remember one very important, breaking story from those news days about a vacuum cleaner that went on a rampage.

And then like every deliciously maudlin 15 year old who loves sad Cure lyrics, I started writing poetry. I was the most tragic. THE MOST. I was keeping a journal and I wrote down everything that happened to me as soon as it happened. And I thought Holden Caulfield had it so good. I was so pissed about that. I read “The Catcher in the Rye” three times my junior year of high school. Along with my very heavy reading load for AP English. I went to Arkansas Governor’s School in 1990 for creative writing. (If you need to see the yearbook from that year, I’m on page 11. I’m #4 in the picture. Also, I CAN’T believe someone put that online!!)

In college I took enough creative writing that I nearly got an English minor on those classes alone. I’ve always loved writing and telling stories. And while I’ve never felt the urge (much) to write a novel, I love writing essays for this blog and for other blogs over the years. Sharing stories is powerful stuff. And women tend to not tell their stories. To tell my story is to intentionally take up space in a world that so often wants women to be less.

Sewing and fibers

My mom sewed and for a while she made things and sold them at craft fairs. I remember one year when the craft prep for a Christmas craft show started in July. Santas everywhere while it was still 95 degrees in Arkansas. So there was always fabric and yarn around our house.

I sewed clothes for my Barbies. I didn’t even WANT a Barbie until I realized I could make clothes for her. There was a long time in middle school when I wanted to be a fashion designer, the perfect meeting of drawing and making with fabrics!

I got hooked on cross stitch around then too. And if ever there was a gateway drug to crafting, it’s counted cross stitch! I cross stitched my way straight into carpal tunnel in both hands and finally had to give it up in my 30s because I couldn’t grip the needle any more.

My grandmother tried to teach me how to crochet when I was a kid but since I was left handed she quickly decided I was unteachable. I learned how to crochet (right handed because why learn how to do something backwards when I was learning from scratch anyway?) when I gave up cross stitch because I could hold the hook more easily than a needle.

Paper and paper and more paper

My grandmother cut out flowers from magazines and put them on poster boards. That’s the only paper memory I have besides my dad and the notepads. But oh man, have I loved paper forever! I’ve been cutting things out of magazines my whole life. I’ve been collaging on my notebooks since middle school for sure and maybe even before that. I don’t ever remember not loving glueing things to other things. There’s just always been this need for me to glue things down to remember or to hold on to them or to make space for something beautiful or to make connections between things. It’s a powerful urge for me to glue things together.

Paper, to me is one of the most amazing substances on earth. What a magical technology it is! We use it for E V E R Y T H I N G. And I mean everything. We wrap our food in it. We package things in it. It is used for business communication and record keeping and sending notes to loved ones. Nearly everything we purchase has a piece of paper on it somewhere. It can be easily made at home with a few tools or it can be fantastically processed. It can be rustic or amazingly refined. We make it out of a variety of fibrous materials and a bit of glue and water. I never get tired of it. What it is and I what I can do with it.

No surprise

So there’s all these pieces that when they join up it’s clear I was always going to be an artist, a maker of things. I’m thankful that the path of my life has allowed for this. I’m grateful to my family and friends who have supported me and most especially my partner, Stephen. Over the past 30 years we have built a culture of YES AND with each other, allowing each of us to pursue our interests and dreams.

What’s your answer to “What is your earliest memory of wanting to be an artist?” Catch up with me on socials and tell me your memories, email me, or go old school and leave a comment on this post to be immortalized for all of time.

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