Recently, in one of my time-wasting-surfing-the-internet bouts, I came across a quote from Pablo Picasso and it made me think of my childhood. He said:
Wise man, indeed!
As a child, I’d like to say that I was very artistic. I was always doodling and drawing and painting masterpieces. Growing up, my sister and I weren’t allowed to have coloring books. At the time, I thought it was some form of child torture and I reveled in the times my friends would let me color in their coloring books. But what I didn’t know, is that my parents were fostering our own creativity and imagination.
It worked. We always had ample crayons, color pencils, markers, paints, and books and books of blank paper. As we got older, when other kids would get excited for the new, hot coloring book, my sister and I would get excited about getting a new sketch book, empty and yet full of possibilities.
I was always drawing, there wasn’t a blank space on paper safe from my doodles. I got in trouble in my kindergarten class for painting my apple an assortment of wild colors, while the directions were to paint it red. I got in trouble for not following directions. I was too young to realize the rage from my parents, but I’m quite certain that teacher will remember my parents until the day she dies.
Through middle and high school, not a stitch of homework was free from at least one drawing. In fact, in my sixth grade science class I kept getting marked down on my homework, not because I was answering questions incorrectly, but because the margins were full of illustrated battles of epic proportion.
This love of drawing grew until I decided at a young age that, in conjunction with my passion for all things Disney, I wanted to be a cartoon animator for Disney. I studied the ins and outs, how the company worked, how they hired, what they required to get in. I even wrote a letter to the animation department in my early high school days to find out what it was like to work there. I actually got a letter back from them! I think I still have it around here somewhere.
A solid dream if you ask me.
I took art classes in high school, and by my senior year, it was pretty much the only class I went to on a regular basis. Almost every piece of work I had, ended up going to a local art show at some point. It was a proud time for me. It wasn’t until my first year at Arizona State University, when my major was Studio Art in hopes of graduating and moving to Southern California to immerse myself in all that is Disney, that those dreams quickly dissipated.
That’s a different story for a different day. I’ve actually gotten a little off track here, as this blog is brought to you today from my seven year old me.
When I was seven years old and we were living in Southern California, at one point, we had a small problem with pests. By pests, we had possums and skunks frequenting our back yard. So my mom took matters into her own hands and got a trap. If any of you are familiar with these small animal traps, basically what you do is put a dish of cat or dog food in there, and once the animal enters, the back door swings shut and traps them.
I’d have to say, seeing a picture of this trap now and comparing to my rendition, I was quite accurate!
It was working swimmingly, and every morning I would get so excited to run out to the back yard and see what kind of creature we had managed to capture! At this time, we also had a cat. A huge cat. She was more like a hippopotamus with a fur coat that meowed.
If there was ever a time you needed to find her, you just had to turn on the automatic can opener, and she’d come running. She’d tear open bags of treats by herself and gorge herself. If we ever left on a camping trip, my mom would have to hide food all over the house so she wouldn’t sit there and eat it all in one sitting. She would literally lay next to a bowl of food, yes I said LAY next to, and scoop her food into her mouth.
Anyway, one morning, when I ran out to the trap to see what beast we caught, this was my account of what I found. Coming to you straight from 1990.
Don’t mind the lady in the bikini that came through from the other page. That was a depiction of my mom by a lake. Old paper, yeesh.
Apparently, in addition to being quite artistic when I was seven years old, I was quite the maestro of words! Man, am I glad I kept this gem of a story, even if it is a 23-year old notebook. (ahem ** hoarder ** ahem)
Unihorn of Steel 