Class Begins on Monday

Today, the question was posed: have you known that you are an artist since the beginning of time?

The immediate answer that sprung to mind: YES!

What is art?  Who determines what qualifies as art?

It wasn’t until the past few days that I realized that any act of creation is art, and that creation is in my blood.  My experience in working with other human beings over the years has taught me that everyone yearns to engage in that act, the act of creation.  To one extent or another, we are all artists.

When we are young, we believe we can create anything.  We believe that the world is ours for the molding.  Then, we get older and that goes away.  I’ve talked about that many times.  I maintain that it is true.  However, I reserve the right to change my ideas, and recent events have indeed changed my mind.  I believe that the yearning to create does not go away.  Like so many other aspects of our childhood, both good and bad, it buries itself deep behind the masks and facades of the adult ego.  From the recesses of our psyches, it contributes when it can.

In my life, it is time to change that situation.  Suddenly, there is a piece of my soul stirring after many, many years.  It is a piece to a puzzle that seems to make a little more sense every day.  Every day, I create.  I want to create more.  I want to create in different ways.  There are so many ways to create.  First, words.  Now what?  Smells are strong triggers of memory.  Few things smell as good to me as a freshly-opened box of pencils.  2H.  6B.  F.  

I found the pencil sharpener I used to sharpen my sketching pencils with when I was in high school.  High school, yo.

I lied to Mrs. Juliano the last time I saw her.  I told her that I was going to take a class at the Art Institute of Chicago.  I wanted to, really.  I think I even believed that I would…some day.  But the truth is that I told her I was going to when I knew that I wouldn’t.  I’ve never forgotten that lie.

Well, Mrs. Juliano, wherever you are, it may not be at the AIC but class begins on Monday.