On Being (an Artist)
I am drawing a house on a white board in the middle of the conference room at my dad’s office. It is 1977. I am four years old. It’s a crooked triangle with a tall chimney. It has three little windows and a bent front door. None of the walls of the house are the same height. The white board is huge. The house is large. The marker I’m using is permanent. I hear a panicked voice behind me saying, “Lisa! NO!” I turn around, pen in hand, ready to make my next mark. Just as I am about to draw a large circle (which will be a sun), my mother rushes me and grabs the pen from my hand. “You can’t draw on that with that marker! It won’t come off!”
She scurries to find something that will remove the house from the white board. I am given paper and pen to draw with instead.
Being an artist has delivered unexpected trouble to my door more than once. When I was in kindergarten my parents were called because I wouldn’t leave my painting until it was “done”. I often drew when and where I shouldn’t. As an adult, the trouble has presented itself as people constantly undervaluing my skills and time. Many people want my work for free, or at a reduced cost. Because these requests are ever present and persistent, I go through seasons where my confidence in my work suffers. I doubt dentists and lawyers are asked to work for a reduced rate so often and with such nerve. I’m working on consistently valuing my expertise and abilities and charging a fair rate for my work. It’s a dance I haven’t quite mastered yet.
Being an artist has also saved me more than once. Not too long ago, I experienced a trauma that changed my life. For days, weeks, and months after I drew page after page of lines and shapes. Existing in the reality of what I was going through was simply too much and I couldn’t do anything but draw, draw, draw. The images didn’t make sense. They didn’t need to. I drew and drew until I felt like I was a little bit human again.
It took a long time.
I recently came across an old video tape of me at seven years old. My dad was asking me what I wanted to do “when I grew up”. I said, “I want to write stories and draw them, I want to be an artist.” It would be a long road before I would pursue it full time. I now call myself an Artist, and I’m still figuring out exactly what that means. So far, I’ve found that it’s a combination of courage, daily commitment to the work, semi-regular bouts of crippling self doubt, and a complete lack of caring what anyone else thinks. Stepping into those paint-spattered Birkenstocks takes time.
I think about that house I drew on the white board often. I try to remember what I was thinking as I uncapped that sharpie. I don’t remember my motivation, but I do remember the joy I felt as the marker hit the white board and I made that first mark.
Each line was a little road map to something new.