"Imaginary Friend"

I had an imaginary friend named Sally.  She was all sorts of wonderful.  She was the kind of girl to hold hands with while skipping and singing, pausing only to jump in mud puddles or to look at bugs.  She played nice in the sandbox, never thinking to hit me in the head with a metal truck.

I wonder what happened to Sally?  Did she grow up and marry Prince Charming and have 2 perfectly wonderful children?  Did she become an neurobiologist or a world famous musician?  Perhaps all of the above?  I hope she had a perfectly spectacular life.  I miss her.  I wish we'd kept in touch.

I felt pressured to give Sally up back then.  Mom wouldn't let Sally have a plate at the table.  Dad didn't want to take Sally fishing with us and I had to leave her at home.  My sister was more straightforward.  She made fun of me for indulging in fantasy while my parents exchanged looks with each other making it clear they agreed.  Stick with the real world.  Fantasy is next to crazy.

Sally went underground for a while.  I talked to her in my head instead of out loud.  I showed her the bugs I found.  I made her parts of our sandcastles.  I knew she was fantasy, but I was lonely.  The Glen where I grew up was filled with natural beauty, but it had very few children my age.  Sally brightened my days until I got a tiny, green turtle.  Then all those bugs became turtle food, and nobody seemed to care when I talked to him.

I think we give up too many things to count as we get older, so much so that we can't even remember what we used to have.  We forget to play and imagine.  We learn to fit in, but we're ghosts of our original selves and we spend too much of our adult lives trying to get some of ourselves back again.

I felt cursed by loneliness when I was a child.  Sometimes I look at it now as a gift.  With only myself to talk with, I decided for myself what I thought and felt.  When I got older, I was comfortable challenging societal norms when I experienced peer pressure.  Of course I had that sister who made fun of me, but I mostly didn't care what she thought.  After all, I didn't approve of everything she said and did.  Live your own life and leave me alone.

While I didn't have many kids to play with, I did have quite a few old people, some of them as lonely as I was.  They were a gift in a different way.  One old lady was charmed to have tea with my imaginary friend and hospitably put out a plate of cookies for Sally (which I helpfully assisted Sally in eating).  I had serious conversations with my old people and discussed issues I was hot and bothered with, issues I'm pretty sure I haven't even considered since.  Maybe they'll matter again when I'm old?

Sometimes the challenges we face turn out to be part of what makes us special.  Sometimes they cause us to look in different places than we would if everything was the way we wish it would be.  Everyone has something unique about their experience, and that uniqueness is what makes each of us important in the world.  Each person's story is its own piece of art.

"Pet"

The family had a dog when I was little.  She loved me, I loved her, and that's pretty much the way it is with dogs.  She was a rather smelly little dog to tell the truth because she spent most of her time in the river and woods and lived outside, but I didn't care too much.  Her little heart was full to bursting with unconditional love, the only problem with that is she unconditionally loved others too.  I wanted a pet all of my own.

I collected animals.  I tried to save motherless birds, caught critters in the woods, netted fish... but none of them gave me the love I craved.  Wild animals stay wild even if you contain them.  Sure, the fish in my fish tank perked up when I showed up, but they might've just been hungry.

Dad had a big fish tank with tropical fish.  I enjoyed the bright fish but they were Dad's, and quite frankly, not as smart as my river fish.  Even so, I enjoyed going to the fish store to look at the exotics.  One day Dad said I could pick the fish we'd take home.  Now I'm not stupid, even though I was a pretty small little kid at that time.  I could pick something out, but unless it was something Dad felt like buying we weren't going to get it.

I picked a turtle.

If you're old enough, you'll remember the little green turtles they used to sell.  They don't sell them any more because they carry salmonella.  Damned shame.  They're adorable, and when I made eye contact through the glass it was love at first sight for both of us.

I tugged and pulled at Dad and showed him my heart's desire.  He wavered.  I could tell he was tempted to give in to me.  Mom made it quite clear that turtles weren't fish.  She can be just plain wrong-headed about pets, but I am nothing if not single-minded sometimes.  I wanted the turtle.  I needed the turtle.  The turtle wanted and needed me.

First real victory of my life was cradling my Chinese food container with said turtle looking up at me on the ride home.  Love.  It cradled my finger with its gentle claws.

Yeah, yeah, yeah parental instructions about food, water, all your responsibility, don't blame us if it dies... blah, blah, blah.  I already fed and watered the dog every day for my nickel/week allowance.  I understood daily care.  More than that, I needed someone to care for, and the turtle allowed me to pour my love into it.

I hunted for my turtle every day.  I gave it worms, grubs, minnow, and berries.  We took walks together.  It basked on my forehead.  I kissed it on the mouth and didn't die of salmonella.  It was the best loved turtle ever, and I gave it the best life a captured turtle can live.  I cried at the compost pile funeral years later.

That little green turtle will always be a part of my heart.  Maybe all of my turtle art is a tribute to it.  This piece is cut paper and hangs on my wall where I can see it every day.

Thank you to everyone who sent out good wishes and prayers for Danny.  He is recovering, and is doing so well they sent him home.  I was focused on my concerns for him when I was shaken this week by the sudden death my brother's life-long friend.  You can see Gary's obit here. I can't express how sorry I am for everyone who loved him.

"Water"

“Foamies” are brightly colored foam sheets with sticky backs.  They’re made by a local company who did not hire me after a completely competent interview.  “Jason” and “Tiffany” seemed more concerned that I live on the other side of Cleveland than they were about what was in my portfolio.  “Are you sure you can get to work on time with such a long drive?”  “Yes!”  In fact, I said “yes” to that 3 or 4 times, but apparently there’s a black hole in between the east and west sides which cannot be bridged by waking up earlier.  Fine.  I hate waking up early and admit a long drive is a drag, but sometimes you’ve just got to have a job-- even a job making stupid kiddie patterns with Foamies.  Oh.  Maybe my general disdain and/or desperation might’ve leaked through my perfectly poised competence in the interview?  Oops.

I bought Foamies before the interview in order to be familiar with their product and to impress them with my initiative.  Pfft.  I shoved the Foamies in my supply closet to be forgotten until I discovered them in a recent archeological dig in there for a goal I can’t remember.  Since I had recently been in the upstairs storage unearthing frames which are now scattered all over the living room, it seemed like a great time to lay on the couch and cut out colorful shapes.  It might’ve been the first time I’ve related to Henri Matisse’s cut paper period.

Now my house has messes in every room when I’m pretty sure the original goal was to clean house.  This is especially timely since I had company yesterday and plan on more tomorrow, and I’m not sure anyone I’m thinking of giving these treasures to will be as pleased about receiving them as I was about their creation.  It’s also ironic that I’ve been cutting all these colorful things when my original goal was to do a black and white Halloween series.  Ah well.  My next quest could be for my 3-D paint, which I think I may have used up, but I found stained glass paint when I was looking for the 3-D paint…

… After an undetermined time of staring at orange flowers and wondering if I could pass them off as water lilies, or maybe making a Foamie frog, then lunch, and back to pondering orange flowers, it occurred to me that what I’m actually supposed to be doing is cleaning house.  I then had grouchy thoughts about how many times housekeeping has interfered with my potential masterpieces and feeling quite self-righteous, shout “I won’t fall into that trap today!”  Besides, I think a turtle might be better than a frog, and I can never have enough turtles…

This kind of free flowing thought is exactly the sort of thing grownups try to stamp out of us when they uphold discipline and social order and enforce potty training, but precisely the stream of thought necessary for creativity.  We should all paddle in that canoe and forget what the grownups want.  The relative cleanliness of my house isn’t as important as a Foamie turtle.

"Influence"

I want the days back when artists were valued as magicians. We had status through the millennia, but our collective energy has been sucked into making endless ads for erectile dysfunction pills on sale today at Walmart. Not to say that keeping men happy doesn’t have its value to society, but it’s hardly ever a spiritual pursuit, and our magical potency in the world has been lost.

When cavemen painted prayers on rocks, their people respected them. The shaman’s contribution mattered to the hunt. Their spiraling calendars of light would determine when the corn was planted or when the winter camp set up or torn down. The pictograms translated across languages and eras. When Michelangelo was painting biblical stories on ceilings, he was illustrating the path to heaven for the illiterate masses. In other words, artists have been the spokespeople for God. It’s kind of a rough downgrade to selling antidepressants. In fact we’re probably taking antidepressants to get over our collective loss of influence.

I’m not going to make any value judgments about whether the caveman or the Pope was more right about what God wanted from people. What I’m saying is that the artist had a pivotal role in the religions. If you wanted a Christian or pagan amulet, the artist would be the one to make it. If the pharaoh wanted everlasting life, the artists were the ones who designed the pyramid and sculpted the sarcophagus. Even the tattoos on head hunters were visual prayers. Monk artists copied the Bible and illuminated its pages. Really, the more you start thinking about it, has anyone gotten to the other side without the help of an artist magician?

It makes sense to me. Artists by their nature are observant and meditative. They would be the ones to notice the length of days and phases of the moon. They notice the signs of the coming hurricane. They pay attention to their dreams. They understand which images speak most strongly to their people. They’re open to magic.

Artists used to be the scientists, engineers, and architects too. There was a time when we weren’t smashed into a single function of My Little Pony accessories. We were the ones who sculpted the fountains and built the cathedrals. We were the ones who truly understood alchemy as we made paint and stained glass from stone, and then we practiced the greater alchemy of taking colored mud and turning it into art.

The Illustration Friday word for the week is “influence”. I have been influenced by thousands of years of artists before me. I am also influenced by the artists who come after me. This piece is the result of a conversation with my 9-year-old niece about pictograms, and her purple crayon drawing of a turtle while we discussed the associations we have with turtles: wisdom, longevity, patience. I love drawing with kids. They seem to have an innate understanding that art is magic :)