raincoats for penguins

Years ago, I decided to commit myself to the overwhelming challenge of making one creative image a day for a month. My daughter was 2 years old at the time and she was basically still with me 24/7 (long boring story). I hadn’t re-entered the workforce. My self-esteem was nil. With itching fingers, too many ideas and not enough time in the day, I just had to start something, anything that would give me a quiet moment to re-connect with a part of myself, any part of me that was… artistic. Surely, this could help me feel… better.

I had time for a pencil, eraser, 200gsm paper and a pair of scissors. After being a bit neat with the pencil strokes for 10 minutes I decided it wasn’t working so I went a little rogue. The result isn’t anything to write home about (especially when your dad is a retired graphic designer with a shrewd familial opinion). But I wasn’t ashamed of it. 

And I didn’t quickly delete it the next day to avoid the feeling of wanting to improve/recontextualise it. Looking back, it was an important baby step.  A first step based less on how other people would find me lacking and based more on me just enjoying my own ‘studio’ space and getting reacquainted with a forgotten process, a forgotten motor skill, a forgotten moment of mediative hyperfocus. 

You see, I have an intense personality streak running in the background of everything I do, mixed with that, I upgraded a rigid and suffocating attitude about what I thought I should produce creatively. A decision defined by the poverty of time and the anxious knowledge of impending tasks far less self-serving than sitting down at a table and drawing a ‘little’ picture. 

But it was ok. And it’s still ok. I’m still in the process of remembering lost skills, educating myself with new skills, navigating new emotions about how I can use the creativity I use in my everyday life and weave it beautifully with a studio space that I had previously reserved for ‘proper’ art. 

I’m glad I made this image. I’m grateful to my past self for getting over myself just enough to not take what I take so serious so seriously. My past self would be too tense to appreciate the irony.