I am a homegrown artist. I remember sitting on my mom's lap writing little poems and drawing sketches to go along with them. The poems we wrote went along the lines of, "green is for frog; blue is for cold; white is for lace;" etc. I was 3 or 4 at the time, just learning to read and write. And draw.
Later my mom was in school finishing her Bachelor's, and an art class was on the list of things to do. She handed me her oil pastels and asked me to draw a duck. I remember the thick, earthy smell of the pastels, the creaminess as they smeared across the paper, the chunkiness they left behind.
I also remember the summer my mom sat me down to start "official" art lessons. I sat at the dining room table, fan blowing at my feet, and she had me do all sorts of "right brain" sketching activities--contour drawing, blind contour drawing, upside down replicating, etc. I sat for hours in another world. I took every art class I could in school, carried a sketch book around with me, and art was my outlet.
I graduated high school, and took off to Italy with my sketch book. My mom had gotten me a one-way ticket to Italy as my high school graduation present, and I had worked since I was 14--this helped me travel, learn Italian, teach english, work as a nanny. I drank in the Italian sun, breathed the fresh-bread and olive oil-scented air, walked the cobbled streets alone. I was 17 going on 18, and felt like a lost girl with no ground under my feet.
Somewhere in between returning to the states and today, I grew into a pragmatic adult who learned to love the sciences. I worked as a medical assistant for ten years, got my Bachelor's in Community Health, had undergrad papers published, worked as a Medical Assistant Instructor at a Tech School.
And, as most things in life, my life has come full circle. I love holding my boys on my lap reading and sketching, and we have "Project days" in which they get to experiment with different mediums. I don't miss the corporate world at all. I want to sketch. Paint. Create. Maybe this is a language I can speak again. Here I am on the verge.
