The Square Life

Once upon a time, I read this book about creativity called Orbiting the Giant Hairball by Gordon MacKenzie. Gordon is an artist and the founder of Hallmark’s alternative humor card department, Shoebox Greetings. And even though I usually can’t remember what happened yesterday, let alone something I read over five years ago, a certain part of Gordon’s book has always stuck with me.

And now that I have you on the edge of your seat screaming, “WHAT PART, ALISON?” I will share it with you. Gordon used to travel to elementary schools as a keynote speaker for assemblies. He would talk to the students about creativity and art—and Hallmark cards. Gordon said he would start every assembly with the same question: “Who here is an artist?” And after doing a number of assemblies, he began to notice a trend. He discovered that the younger audiences had more artists. When he asked the question to the kindergartners, first graders, or even second graders, a mass of tiny arms confidently shot in the air, and voices shouted, “I’m an artist!” But the older children were not so eager. The few that actually did raise their hands did so with hesitation, and not without looking around first for approval.

Gordon then begs the question, and so do I: What could have possibly happened to all the artists? If you had asked five-year-old Alison if she was an artist, I would have laughed at you and then snapped, “Obviously! Look at my hot-pink tights and sparkly red shoes! Not only am I an artist, I’m a fashion designer!” But if you were to ask 25-year-old Alison “Are you an artist?” I would probably make some wisecrack about how I’m just one of “The Man’s” many advertising whores, and no artist.

Where did all that confidence in my artistic abilities go? Did I lose it after seeing that Samantha Stemler’s pictures, and not mine, were the best in our fifth grade class? Or maybe I stopped dreaming of becoming a fashion designer when I moved in with Tara Shields and came to the sad realization she would always be better dressed than me. Somehow, little by little, I—and I think a lot of us—let others, whether by comparison or criticism, steal our inner artist.

Don’t get me wrong. You will always have your “natural artists,” those who can probably draw better than you and work the kiln better than you. But I think the point a lot of us miss is that just because someone else is good or even better than you, it doesn’t mean that you can’t be good too. We can all be artists of something, in some form, in our own way.

So maybe no one slapped an “artist” label on my forehead. Big whoop. I’m still the artist I was when I was five, and so are you. We should never let anyone else define who we are. And so I declare, “I am an artist of narcissistic words, I am an artist of making elaborate gifts that take the place of quality time, I am an artist of love.” Now you say what you’re an artist of. Good. Now together we’ll all say, “I am artist, hear me roar.” Ridiculous? I’m aware. Futile? I think not.