The Day I Pretended not to be Talented
Once around age five or six, I drew my mom a picture. It was a Mother’s Day gift, or maybe it was a just-because gift I don’t remember. At the time, my life consisted of homeschooling with my siblings, tagging along to my older siblings’ sporting events, sometimes ballet class, lots of solitary reading, and drawing. That one book about the blonde girl and the porridge, and the family of bears was my ish at the time and I’d flip through it on repeat. Sunday school was a regular part of the routine which often included breakout time for crafts after what felt like hours of memorizing Bible verses and songs, and being told stories that wouldn’t click until years later about the Bible and how it related to the real world. But the craft time made sense. Being given markers or crayons and blank paper not only made sense, but felt right in a way I couldn’t describe. I recall one day in particular where the spirit led me to start my drawing with a whimsical curvilinear border, and so I did just that. As soon as I got my thought out on the paper, I saw kids near me try to mimic the curved border I’d just created, and I was so appalled. It felt wrong that the spiritual inclination that guided my work and that came from the bottom of my heart could just be mimicked like that. I didn’t feel flattered or smug about it. I was just like “Wow is this really what we’re on right now?”
Back to the picture I drew for my mom. As a result of the internal ordeal that was the Sunday school drawing incident, I was left feeling off and confused. I was uncomfortable about my spiritually led artistic expression being co-opted by kids who didn’t have the same inclination in their spirit, and were copying me instead of listening to their own hearts to lead the direction of their creative expression. (Even as a five or six year old I was dead serious about arts. Insufferable? Sure. Sue me.) I of course didn’t have any language back then to describe why this felt off. It just felt off. And I thought that maybe if something feels off, and nobody all seems to share my feeling of discomfort/unease, maybe there’s something wrong with me. So, an occasion came for me to give my mom a gift and I made her a drawing. In an attempt to course correct the “off” feeling that was plaguing me, I went in a completely different direction with this drawing. I drew my mom a family of STICK FIGURES and the most juvenile looking flowers and sun in the corner that I could muster. It was a mimicry of the age appropriate, juvenile looking art styles I saw my Sunday school peers create in. And ironically it took a lot of effort to dumb down my natural art style to execute this.
I never drew a stick figure before this day. I never drew any after. I always was one to draw limbs and attempt to execute the anatomy and proportions I saw on real people and I would do extensive studies of the illustrations in the books I would enjoy. (Although I didn’t know to call them studies, to me it was something I just felt inclined to do.) The reason I gave my mom a dumbed down drawing that day was because that’s how the other kids would draw, and it was embarrassing to stand out, even if for something positive. I gave my mom the drawing, and she accepted it as kindly as any mother would upon receiving a gift from their kindergarten age child, but I swear there was a sort of unspoken expression that she gave me that said “Now miss girl… You know damn well this is not how you draw.“
From that day forward, I didn't draw another stick figure because it is too difficult for me to stifle my natural abilities and inclinations and it pains me to be inauthentic and I can’t do it for long, if at all, I strive to put myself in spaces and positions where inauthenticity will never be the prerequisite.
(Photo attached is of my authentic drawing style at age six.)
