My Art Story
I was in eighth grade when an art teacher looked at my drawing and said, "That's something a second grader would do." His comment shamed the art right out of me. I believed his words and could be heard to say from that moment on, "I cannot draw."
But I wanted to draw, was fascinated with people who could draw. My response to any visual artist I encountered was awe at what others could do and sorrow at what I could not.
While teaching writing and literature at a little college in Burlington, Vermont, many years away from the eighth-grade me, I met the art teacher there: Geebo Church. When I said to Geebo, "I cannot draw," he told me never to say those words again. He invited me to his class. He sat me down at a desk with pencil and paper and guided me and praised every single line I made.
I continued taking art classes in Vermont, and then we moved to Boston where I took art classes at the Museum of Fine Arts, wandering through galleries and drawing what I saw there. I worked with graphite and watercolor and gouache on paper--all studies at best, practice. But instead of saying, "I cannot draw," I was saying, "I am learning to draw."
Around that time, I visited an Apple Store to upgrade my computer. Catherine, a sales person, said, "Why don't you get an iPad? You can do everything on it, including art." Not only was Catherine a good salesperson, she saw beyond my immediate computer needs to something else. I used my iPad more often than my computer. Then, I happened upon an app called Paper, the simplest of drawing apps: a blank screen with a menu of options that include pencil, pen, eraser, brush, and color palette.
Paper was set up in such a way that you could immediately interact with other Paper users. It turns out other people who were drawing on Paper, some truly remarkable artists, liked my drawings. Of course that encouraged me, but something more significant was happening. Those artists became my teachers. I asked them questions about shading and composition and how to do this and that. Paper became art school. I graduated to other drawing apps, my favorite is Procreate, and I just kept learning.
Procreate allows for layering content—and I discovered I could drop in images of text from favorite poems and stories as well as images from nature (rock surfaces, tree bark, brick and concrete walls). That set me off on a path of composing narrative art. Using a mixture of digital collage, drawing, and painting, I found my compositions. I found my own style of art-making that magically combines my love of literature and nature.
I can draw.
