Week 5 - About Art

 

Okay, I’ve got cancer. Yes, I’m in treatment. It sucks. Enough of that. At week 5, It’s time for something completely different.

All my life I’ve been an artist.

I wouldn’t have said it, or said it out loud, until now. I might have wished “I wish I could be an artist.”

Instead I lied to myself.

“I can’t draw.”

“I don’t have artistic talent.”

“I wish I could make art.”

We tell ourselves lies, then we go believe them. 

And ironically we go about our day and make art. It may not be art using the medium that most people consider “ART,” but it is no less artistic.

We talk to other people, we cook, we nurture, we go to the office or the field, and we make art. Some of it is better than others, we all have good moments and good days and the other ones where we’re just hanging in there.

Sometimes art is throwing towels in the dryer on a bad day, pulling them out one by one, warm and soft and fuzzy, and hugging them. And then folding them and putting them back into the closet. This is the art of self comfort.

When I was a child I loved to paint. When I was a teenager I found out that I loved to write. Later in my adolescence, growing into adulthood, I loved drawing maps for fantasy Dungeons & Dragons campaigns. They were good - at some point I may go back to mapmaking.

My tools were large art paper, mechanical pencils, and colored pencil.

I told myself they sucked. I threw them all away. D&D hadn’t gotten mainstream popular then, it was a stigma to role play. I grieve for those lost maps.

In my 20’s I wrote. I wrote lovely short stories and journaled. I stopped writing short stories around the time I turned 30.

I told myself the stories were of no use, and I threw them all away too. My life was getting practical. Marriage, many lovely children, and that became my art. Here is how that picture looked in my 50’s:

I’ll never throw this art out. It looks even better every day. The art of my family grows and grows, new layers being painted in there every day.

Cooking was one of my arts then too. I don’t know if my kids will every look back on the dishes I cooked with love, basic ingredients, and a strong desire to nurture, but I won’t forget. Right now the art of cooking for me is sustaining myself with icky side effects. But it is no less art. And one day treatment will end and my taste for rich sauces and complicated curries will return. I can’t wait!

Raising the kids was art too. I painted watercolor washes of love, independence, interdependence, and even an accent of ferocity, into them. I love how they are turning out!

Between 2004 and now I learned the art of complicated financial planning. Complex spreadsheets to help craft plans that would ensure financial stability for organizations I held (and hold) dear. I’ve done some beautiful work in partnership with beloved colleagues, and these will last too.

Also in my 50’s I decided it was time to nurture my art of painting. I started with digital. Between 2005-2012 I created some lovely bits of digital art. Here are a few of my favorites:

I won’t throw these away.

Now, at 65, I turn to watercolor. I can see new techniques developing, growth, and beauty. I’ve learned from my past mistakes, and will save these, or give them to people I love, or maybe even sell them. 

I’m learning to say “screw you world, I’ll be practical when I must, but I will also nourish my own heart and soul with art.”

You are an artist. Be that. Be the other things that you must as well, but hold dear the art you produce every day. It is your gift to humanity, to the world, and it helps build this rich tapestry we call life.

Back to cancer. It’s week 5 of treatment and yeah, it sucks. But it will not define me.

Thank you for your sympathy, your support, your caring for me. But don’t pity me. Just like you, I’m strong & resilient. This too shall pass.

But my art won’t.