An invitation to play, for grown-ups
"You haven't even started and you're already overthinking it," I teased. My mom had just bought an adult coloring book and was consulting me on every decision: "Should I use pencils or washable markers?" "Do I just copy the sample parts that have already been colored in?" "Are these ones with all the space okay or am I supposed to draw in the empty spaces?" Conversations with my mom are always interesting because I can trace my perfectionist neuroses back to their origin. "Can I still do this? I've never been good at art." Sound familiar?
I like to tease her and give her advice in feigned frustration because it is like talking to myself. We are cut from the same cloth, the kind that is properly measured and doesn't do well when wrinkled. Even our handwriting is the same (but that might be from all the times I practiced forging her signature in grade school; it seemed like a useful skill to have). We always dot our i's and don't go past the lines.
And yet this blog is my attempt to grow past that and to nurture creativity in myself and in my kids. Writing about my artistic pursuits—which are just that: chasing after art rather than actually achieving it—is a way for me to stay mindful of my tendencies to control and correct rather than to observe and invite. It is still a struggle because, as I've mentioned, it's deeply ingrained in me to stay within the lines and to never settle for mediocrity. My mom and I, we usually don't attempt things we're not confident we can do well. But, for my daughter, as a three-year-old, there are few things she can do well the first time. What's lovely and inspiring is that she does not yet know that she can do things "badly." Is there a wrong way to splatter paint on paper? Or to use a leaf to paint? As a child, she just does it; as an adult, I judge my technique. In leaf painting, people.
