Cedar Lee July 28th, 2009

A friend on Facebook recently told me, “I want to know the story of the first time you picked up a paint brush and started painting.”

That’s a hard story to tell because I have no recollection of one such time.  I’ve read many stories of artists who “became artists” at some point in their lives–how at some point, they experimentally picked up some art supplies and began playing, and this moment for them became a turning point, a great discovery and a spiritual awakening to their true creative purpose.  Maybe before that moment they had worked for an insurance company; maybe they had always had dreams of pursuing art but had been too scared to try.  Maybe for them their love of making art was a completely unexpected discovery.

I wish I had a dramatic and inspiring story like that, but I just don’t.  I have always been a visual artist, and I have always painted.  I became more focused on the specific medium of painting around the age of 12, but my entire childhood before that, there was never a time when I didn’t spend at least some of my time painting.  It’s not the only interest I’ve ever had, but it’s always been there.

It’s impossible for me to pinpoint a time when I became “serious” about my art.  My art is a part of me, and I gradually became more serious about it as I grew into an adult and became more serious about everything in life (and of course, as better art supplies became available to me.)  People have told me that I’m lucky to have such a clear vision of my calling, and that many people never find that clarity even after a lifetime of searching.  I don’t know if that’s true, and I don’t know how lucky I am, but it is what it is.  I can’t imagine being any other way.

It’s hard to say how I got that way, but I’ll attempt to explain my creative beginnings.

I think all children are dreamers and creators.  The thrill of creating–of using our minds and our hands to make things, is natural.  I’m happy I’ve kept that spirit of creativity, and I attribute a lot of that to the way I was raised.

I don’t know if I would have been born a painter had I been born into a different family.  My parents never at any point discouraged me from following my interests.  I know that in many families, sad as it is, many a child’s interest in art has been quickly labeled as a frivolous pursuit and mercilessly squelched before the interest had time to take physical form.  I know that not every child grows up with stacks of paper, crayons and watercolors readily at hand.

Neither of my parents is a visual artist, but my mom and dad are two of the most enterprising people I know.  They practice creativity as a value to be lived.  If you have an exciting idea, a wish or a dream, it’s at least worth a try to make it real.  If your efforts fail, you can re-evaluate and try again.  If you want to do something, do it!

Some of my earliest memories are of helping my parents with hands-on projects.  I wrote the following poem when I was in college.  It’s about the idea of yin and yang in all of us, how we are each created from both male and female, and how each person has two opposing and complementary types of energy within them.  It’s a concept that’s always fascinated me.

But in a more specific sense, it’s about my mom and my dad, and how they both infused me with creative energy by sharing small, practical creative actions with me on a regular basis–little things like my mom teaching me to mix paint and to make scented herbal satchels and fresh orange juice.  My dad teaching me the basics of carpentry–measuring and cutting wood.

Equilibrium

Clinking wind-chime bells, she is yin.
She teaches me to mix creamy colors
in the concave cups of a rounded palette.
Add some white, turn red to pink.
We sew tiny beaded pouches,
fill them with dried lavender and mint.
Collect drops of sweet thin juice
from ample oranges by the kitchen sink.

Rumbling wooden drums, he is yang.
He teaches me to hammer nails in wood.
We measure, heads together, draw pencil marks.
Run the orange extension cord
under the sawhorse.  Allow the scream
of the electric saw, plowing through a board
and the fragrance of spitted sawdust
to infiltrate our heads.  Our pulses thud.

But painted colors, big and bold, are yang.
And floating flurries of sprinkled sawdust, yin.
By being themselves they make each other
—and me.  I beat my path out fiercely, like the sun,
but also whisper, like the floating moon.

So at some point, probably as a toddler, I decided to make a painting, probably a crude smear of finger paint.  Then I decided to make another one.  Then I never stopped.  Maybe someday, if I live long enough, I’ll get good.

• General Ramblings About Art, Creativity, Philosophy , My Artistic Past
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