I would always tell the youth I worked with to revel in your own weirdness, not wait to follow your dreams and never NEVER let someone tell you that you are not smart enough or that your art is not good enough. God does not make junk and all we must do is tap into ourselves, sometimes deeper than we would like to, to find our creative self; do not wait.
Creativity in my life has been a sometimes-dormant lifeline. I was always the different one. Not great in school but excelled in art, history, or choir. But back in the day, my day, girls were to do their studies and learn their math. I exhausted my parents with being unable to recite the “times tables” – multiplication. Yet I could do fractions – as I said earlier – I was the different one.
When I wasn’t out running around, riding bikes, skateboarding, climbing trees, etc. – in other words stuck in the house – I would draw, I would write. But I never had any confidence in myself to share much of it. One of my favorite memories is of the drawing I did of my sister sitting on the floor of our living room watching the moon landing. I can remember this picture in every detail. The curtains in the background, the length of my sister’s hair and the tiny image I drew of the moon on the TV screen. Wish I still had that picture. I would doodle with my Dad. He would draw a little squiggly line on a piece of paper, and I would be asked to make something out of it. I was rather good at it! But my “art career” came to a sudden stop in my teens when I was told by an art teacher that all my drawings looked like cartoons and I should be more serious with my art. As I said earlier, I didn’t have much in the way of self-confidence, so I put down my pencil, pens, and anything else artistic and refused to play the doodle game with my Dad any longer. I stuck to my outdoor activities and got well versed in anything that had nothing to do with art or school.
So, without an outlet other than things that were dubbed “wild” or “boy like” I was always in conflict with my parents. Eventually, I conformed and got married to someone that “calmed me” (as my parents liked to say). Keeping the art tucked away in some part of my soul I got down to the business of being a wife and soon after a mother. As life would have it, my daughter was disabled and her father was gay (who knew?! – coming out in the 70s wasn’t something easily done) and that didn’t work well for him or our marriage so I was on my own dealing with an amazingly difficult bundle of joy who spent most of her infancy at the hospital or doctors and most of her toddler years trying to teach me to draw in the air. Pictures that only she, in her beautiful autistic mind, could see, and that might have cracked open that door I had shut so long ago.
Life continued and I had no intention of marrying again, but God had different plans. I met my amazing husband who accepted my wildly different daughter and then, ten years after my daughter, God blessed me with a beautiful boy that turned out to be just as creative, if not more, than me. His sister would draw in the air, but he and I would lay on our backs and make pictures in the clouds. Although he never felt drawn to the doodle game, we would create amazing stories when he was unable to sleep. He would give me a name, or a creature and I would wind a fanciful story that most of the time had him as the hero. Now he is a hero and brings his own creativity to the comic book world.
My art did not fully come back right away, heck it took years and years. But my beautiful daughter who could see pictures in the air and my amazing son who could help create stories out of nothing kept that door from slamming shut permanently. So, I thought, why shouldn’t I draw for her, create for him? My art became gifts for family and friends and words became poems and stories for the kids at church. One of my favorite memories of sharing stories, other than with my son, is of a little girl who was the oldest of 7 children, she being the only girl. After church I would sit with her while her parents tried to gather her six brothers into their van. She would be so frustrated with it all, so we created a story, “The Kingdom of Katie”. It was the story with her as the Princess in the Kingdom of Katie and the six ogres (brothers). In THIS Kingdom she would always be the hero. Each Sunday we would add to the story and it became a time for her to escape for a little while and later I found out that it helped her navigate being the eldest of seven and the only girl.
Creativity, I found, never left me. I just put it on hold and used in ways to reach my daughter, comfort my young son, and teach or help the kids that God would place in my path. Now in my “golden years”, and retired, a floodgate was opened and the creativity that God gifted me with came flooding back. Using the pain and joy of my life experience it all just rushed out in an amazing rainbow of what I lovingly refer to as strange creations. I do have to say that I still do not draw much, but I do have a few doodles waiting to become something wonderful.
I must admit that I am a bit frustrated. I finally got to a place where I could create and share my art and then the whole Covid19 thing rocked the world. I have not felt the urge to create much because I have no outlet for it as all the art shows, fairs and festivals have been closed for now. Hopefully soon Covid with be in the rearview and I can get back to sharing my art. But I do know that I will never again tuck away the gift that God has given me, and I will try to use it to help others “revel in their weirdness”. We are all unique and should use whatever we have been blessed with to help someone else see the beautiful in the chaos of everyday life.
Sandy Harris
Sandy has background in social work but now focuses on creating! Check out Sandra’s Heart Art.