“You need to learn how to draw.”
I don’t really recall where it came from or why it was said, but God, do I remember it.
I was at Aunt Pam and Grandma Betty’s house. I’m not sure if I was showing her my work, but I remember my mother saying to me, “You need to learn how to draw.” There was no further explanation, just a put-down of my artistic expression.
Adolescent me was taken aback. I was sitting on my knees at the coffee table with crayons in my hand and a white piece of paper with something scribbled on it that doesn’t make sense to me now. I finally got the gall to respond with a whimper to avoid getting slapped: “Not everyone can draw.” Honestly, my own self-defeat about not everyone being good at drawing, plus her words, made it easy for me to back away from the crayons and paper.
This sentence became the foundation and further confirmation whenever anyone judged something of mine. I recall drawing and creating stories all the time. I had pages of weird story ideas, like my rabbit spin-off of the Ninja Turtles. Grandpa would give me these white legal pad-length sheets to draw on, and I would get right to it.
Then one day, I stopped.
I don’t remember deciding to stop. I don’t remember what the last drawing was. But by the time I was in middle school, I was reminded by peers that what I made wasn’t good enough. I would write stories that people told me weren’t good (ok, sure, I remade Vampire in Brooklyn to be Vampire in Baltimore, but damn, I didn’t need to get dissed that hard). Of course, I wasn’t good at this. I’m not creative. I can’t even draw.
Why did I just stop one day? My preteen wars with puberty and isolation along with my sudden transformation into a poor student probably didn’t leave enough space for creation when my parents weren’t constantly punishing me. Or maybe I was comfortable just sitting on the sidelines watching others create. I was such a hip hop head. Surely I couldn’t be as creative as them. I found the little outlets that I’ll write about later (such as my rap scrapbook of 1998-99), but I was so afraid to show them that I kept them tucked in my bedroom. Do they really count if no one sees?
I find myself reliving that moment when I see my kids’ work, and I refuse to tell them how macabre it is at times. Ok, macabre is incredibly harsh, but sometimes I have no idea what the hell it is, and you know what that’s ok.
Taking Design Studio and learning from that awful Rudolf Arnheim book that when children draw they are “engaging in ‘intellectual realism’ rather than visual imitation, representing the basic structure rather than photographic detail.” Kids aren’t failing to draw, but are inventing the representation of something from their view. So perhaps I didn’t suck at drawing as a child; I was just being a child, expressing myself.
Why are those words just so sharp in my mind? It’s amazing to me how words and moments that could otherwise mean nothing to someone could be a defining moment in the foundation of someone’s life. I continued to write but limited myself to journalistic writing. I could only do fact-based reporting in articles or essays. None of the narrative plot-driven things. I didn’t even like doing feature articles. Just straight hard news for me.
Somehow, I became a professional graphic designer, and I still feel uncomfortable making preliminary sketches of my work because I’m concerned about how they’ll look. I don’t even like my handwriting, so I refuse to share my notes. Hell, I practice signing cards on a blank sheet of paper to make sure it doesn’t appear too illegible.
Those 7 words not only pushed me away from creating but also fueled my relentless need to be hard on myself and put myself down. Nothing I do is ever good enough…for myself. I’m my own worst critic, and even when I’m told how good what I create is, I brush it off like it doesn’t matter. Why? Because I didn’t learn how to draw.
