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The World Needs More Memory Keepers

The World Needs More Memory Keepers

Dwayne Walker, in his YouTube video entitled “Where Does Art Come From” tells us that art has the power to capture moments and while time erases and diminishes, art saves and preserves. Time tries to wash things away. We make art because it lets us time travel. Art is a portal, allowing us to speed across time, documenting our presence right here and now, for then…proving we were here. Dwayne tells us that art is how we build a bridge between every version of ourselves. He says we make art because something sacred happens when we do. We make art because our soul has to. My final note from his video is where the title of this post comes from. The world needs more memory keepers.

Those are my favorite parts of the video. Dwayne puts words to what I’ve been unable to describe for over sixty years.

My daughter and I call ourselves memory keepers. We thought we were the ones to invent the term, but not so. There are many memory keepers in the world. We are artists, writers, musicians — creatives.

So like the Spanish sword fighter, Diego Montoya, from Princess Bride said, “we must go back to the beginning”.

I’m writing about this because I’ve been feeling quite blue lately. A lot of things are weighing on my heart. To make things worse, I’ve been feeling like my ability to do art is gone. It’s as if all the years of creating art were just a dream. Yet when I think of what Diego Montoya said about going back to the beginning, I find myself thinking back to my childhood – to when I was ten and discovered the wonder of writing and art.

Here I am, seventy years old, trying to reclaim that wonder, to see if it could rekindle a fire within me and shed light on the truth that the things hurting my heart of hearts aren’t bigger or truer than the fact that I’m going to be just fine. I’m looking at the world around me like a child, seeing it as if for the very first time. It feels like I’m learning to draw all over again, because drawing starts with “seeing”. Not looking. Really seeing. I’ve taught that in classes so many times and I believed it. I must have been seeing or I wouldn’t have been able to render things correctly. Yet I was teaching about seeing with my eyes. Now I’m learning to see with my eyes AND my heart and maybe even a childlike imagination. This time I want what I draw to have heart and soul in it – to have meaning. I’m doing the work for myself this time and doing it just to enjoy the doing of it.

It started the other day when I drew the circle piece that is at the top of my previous post. I used colored pencils on watercolor paper, wanting to see what colored pencil looked like on that very textured paper. If I’d used watercolor paint, it would have had a completely different look.

A while back I drew a cube. I tucked it away for several weeks. When I came across it yesterday, I laid it out on the desk, looking at it all morning, wondering what I could do with it. Also on my desk was a rubber band wrapped around three colored pencils from the previous circle project. Hm, I thought. What could I do with them? Why worry about ruining the carefully sketched cube? Just do it. I set about filling in the cube with the two yellows and one violet. The paper was Marker paper and had a very smooth texture. I loved the way it felt, softly putting colored pencil layers on that paper. It was a new style of drawing and coloring for me.

Working on the cube transported me up and away from my worries and made me feel more like the child I was long ago. It let me exist in the moment and that moment lasted as long as I wanted.

Here then, is the cube.

Create

Create

I’ve been unsuccessful in my attempts to find a job. At first I hoped to find something where I get to sit down (after my last assignment where I stood and walked between 8,000 and 18,000 steps a day). Now I’m just hoping for a job, period. Applying for pretty much anything. I have so much experience in finance and budget, spreadsheets, databases, analysis, etc. I’ve owned my own company. I’ve been a manager, a supervisor, the boss, and also the lowest ranking. Yet I don’t have what it takes to get a real-life job. I don’t know Quickbooks or any of the new systems. I’m seventy years old, living in a place where I know only a couple of people. Family is far away. I chose this place because it’s warm in winter. I have a history of accidents, when driving on snow and ice and would be afraid to leave the house, which would be so awful.

What do I do well? Hands down, I do art. Art has given my life meaning even when there was nothing else. It has given me purpose. For the past year, I’ve lost that meaning and that purpose. I’ve made decisions that seemed absolutely right and then had horrible consequences. I’ve come to doubt myself. In everything.

It makes me so sad, this place I’ve come to be, in my life. At seventy I sure never would have believed this would be what it’s like. Of course, I’m working at accepting that and stepping away from the conversations I’ve had with myself about where I wish I were, where I was, and who I lost.

What hurts the most is that I have so much to give. So much to offer. I’m compassionate and kind. I give away smiles as often as I can, because they’re free and they make such a difference. I believe in God and am so thankful that he gave his son, such a huge sacrifice, for one such as me. Me, the mistake maker.

My life is no longer about forever homes and close family, but is about finding a way to be alone, but independent, and to let go of everything I knew. I have to forget about what was, because if I don’t it takes me down, down, down, into a pit that gets harder and harder to climb out of.

Art, something that has been with me nearly my entire life, is where I find rest and solitude. Spending time with art makes me feel like maybe God is really right here. After all, he is the great creator. He speaks “create”. When I create, it feels like I’m speaking it, too. Like God and I are sharing it. Speaking the same language.

Purpose

Purpose

I dreamed of becoming a great artist, but it was not to be. Yes, I am an artist and will always be, but a quiet artist who just had to make art, with all my heart.

I think God was the first artist. The first creator. He sculpted the hills and mountains, the valleys and river beds. He hung clouds, galaxies and the universe above for our delight. When I create art, I feel like I’m speaking God’s native tongue and like he’s there beside me, ready to give a high five. In fact, it’s like he’s there beside me, watching my heart be poured onto the paper or canvas and he’s smiling and saying, in his own creative way, “well done”. His smile is like a hug. Creating is a language. It’s the words between the lines. It gives us glimpses of something deep in our hearts.

When someone smiles at me, I’m like a puppy who’s tail wags so fast its like an airplane propeller, whirring into a blur. Oh, to be seen.

I’ve slowed, nearly to a stop, in my ambitions, but not in my purpose. I give away smiles.

Tell me…tell me again

Tell me…tell me again

As I age, like an onion, new layers encircle me and become what the world sees.  Layer by layer, it happens.  The me that I started out to be is that little core deep in the center.  It’s that delicate and vulnerable pearl, like the very center of the onion.  All those layers take on the job of protecting the little pearl.  The little girl.  I will always be her.  All the things that the world throws at me and in my path try to distract me, preventing my footfalls from landing where I want them to. Or perhaps those “things” save me from landing my footfalls where I want them to land.

Along the way I encounter someone I see in a YouTube video, or a painting perhaps. I’ve been watching a series of videos called “Reflections of Life”. They inspire and teach me life lessons, giving me pause.  I remember where I meant to go.  What I started out to do.  It’s as though they are able to see through all the layers, bringing me all the way back to that original pearl I started out as.  I feel changed by it and a light shines on the path before me.

There are moments in life that are so sweet, you want to memorize them.  Hold on to them.  Get them out and look at them once in a while to bring them back to you, if only in a fragrant memory.

I can never get enough of such times.  I want to hold onto them, not forgetting a moment or a word.  Sure enough, it begins to fade and I want to call it back and say “tell me…tell me again”.

Hey!

Hey!

I have made major changes to my website! Please take some time to look it over.

In the past three years my life has gotten smaller and more compact. I’ve given away, sold, thrown away, and donated nearly everything I own. Yet I’ve never been happier. While my life is small, its also bigger than the wide world because of the people I’ve met, the scenes that take my breath away, the confidence I’ve gained in overcoming obstacles, kindnesses that have been shown to me, and in the friends I’ve made.

As I move into this nomad life, my priorities are changing as I find my purpose and meaning. I’m wanting to accomplish different things. Most important is my desire to share what I’ve learned with others. With you! Its no longer enough to keep it to myself. I don’t just want you to learn how to draw or paint, but more importantly, I want you to learn to do creative things that are just right for you and that let you live in the moment.

I want to teach!

I want to teach!

Reasons to learn to draw and/or paint

  1. I want to help others find out that they can create things that give them delight and purpose. Learning to do some art has so many benefits. The process of learning to draw can help you develop better decision making skills. Betty Edwards, who founded the course called Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain talked about that in her book of the same title. Its so true.
  2. Viktor E. Frankl wrote a book called Man’s Search For Meaning and it has sold more than fifteen million copies worldwide. That’s 15 MILLION. He survived life in a World War II concentration camp. He writes that those, in the camp, who had a purpose/meaning, survived. Purpose they wanted to see a loved one or maybe they had been working on a book before being captured and they wanted to finish it. No matter what the purpose, it was something that kept them from giving up. Having a purpose helps all of us keep going.
  3. Learning is good for you. You’re never too old to learn something new. It can make you feel young.
  4. Taking a class to learn some type of art gets you out around other people who are also wanting to learn how to do something creative. You’re like-minded. You’ve found your own kind!
  5. Learning to do art or even how to write can open your eyes to the world around you in a way you never experienced before. Our world is the ultimate painting. The ultimate sculpture. The ultimate story. Making art yourself, puts you right into that story.
  6. Finally, if you don’t give up too soon, you’ll gain a better feeling about yourself and you’ll feel better in general.

TRY IT!