(Updated 1 May 2010)
I came to my art through my father. With colored pencils in hand and a large naked art-pad before him, he drew the lines that would become the curves, shapes and shadows of his dolls. His hands were massive, with palms so thick and callused he could mash out burning cigarettes there. On weekends off from the lumber mill, those splintered hands delicately drew the glistening lips and curled lashes of his dolls, with their long billowing manes of blue and black hair, massive breasts, puckered navels, and waists so spectacularly tiny it seemed a man could snap them in two....
For Your Journal/Discussion/Creative Writing:
1. How have you come to your unique artfulness or creativity? Who in your life-story, especially while you were growing up, inspired the development of your unique gift or "craft," whether you write, cook, paint, teach, guide or mentor others? Who was it that greatly influenced your creative quality of life?
2. Days before my father died, in preparation for the possibility of meeting his mother and his Maker, he destroyed with scissors some of the last remaining original drawings of his dolls. It was a sad but beautiful event, you know, because it was his way of taking care of business before he moved on. While the images and poses were striking in their way, they were also grotesque and very crude. Looking at them, one would say he hated women. As pornographic as they were, one could only call them objectifications of women, as bold and progressive as the predatory, strong poses were for the years when he drew them. For me, the act, my father's cutting up those images was very meaningful on a number of levels, and very poetic. What are some events, or "stories" from your life, that are very significant, even poetic as your understanding of them has developed over the years or recently?
