I've been an artist all my life. Sure, I wasn't always as good as I am now. I can still to this day look back at dismal morning in kindergarten when our teacher assigned us the task of making a paper ghost from construction paper. In front of each kid lay a piece of white construction paper, those dull-ass rounded safety scissors, a black magic marker ( the kind that stains.. that washable shit wasn’t invented until later when kids couldn’t be held accountable for getting shit all over their school clothes).My teacher had drawn a "ghost shape" on the chalkboard for us to copy. Rounded top, squiggly ethereal shape that looked like a mutated cross between a genie and that spermatozoa.
I glanced at the chalkboard.. looked at my paper, and began to sketch out the shape with the precision of an epileptic sniper. "Oh no" I thought to myself as I stared down at the irregular shape that donned my paper. It looked nothing like what was on the chalkboard, let alone anything that even the kindest of mothers could decipher as being a ghostly shape. I had a plan though. I’ll just flip the paper over and try again. I had to see how this whole "marker" thing was going play out. That first one was just a trial run. After all, you don’t learn how to drive by entering the Daytona 500.
I focus once more, laying pen to paper. My tongue sticking out the corner of my mouth in a Zen like state of concentration as I follow my mind's eye. However, once again, there surely must be a communication error between my hand and my brain. Instead of a ghost, my work resembled that of an amoeba with a curly pig tail.
Devastation washed over my 5 year old face. How could this be? I clamored for an explanation, questioning everything from chronic marker malfunction to slight nerve damage obtained from that big-wheel accident that I was in weeks before. I just couldn’t wrap my head around it. After all, my mother was an extremely gifted artist. So the slightest bit of genetic favoring should allow me the ability to render this ghost as well as any of the other non-gifted kids that sat in my class. Maybe I was adopted? What if my family had been lying to me all along, and this lack of ghost rendering skills has exposed the family secret!.
Defeat hung over me like a rain cloud as I sat there staring at the scribbled mess. My teacher was making her way around the classroom as most of the others had already begun the cutting process. The clock was ticking away, and craft time was going to run out if I didn’t do something quickly. I raised my hand and asked for another piece of paper. The teacher handed me a fresh canvas, but not before saying "If you can’t draw the shape, just make a circle."
A circle?? What the hell? Was this the ghost of some fat kid? I can’t just draw a circle. That’s admitting defeat, and I'll be damned if I'm going to have this black mark on my otherwise exceptional artistic record. After all, just last week I drew a huge tank battle that included rocket shooting jets and a fort with a giant cannon. If I start trying to pass circles off as ghost, I will surely lose respect in the kindergarten art community.
I once more put pen to paper, and once again it was an utter disaster. Now, I'm pretty sure if anyone else could hear the torrent of expletives and threats of violence against my teacher that were streaming through my head at the time, I would have been committed to a boys home until I was old enough for real prison. I was almost in tears. Surely arts & craft time was near the end, and I only have one good side of paper left. There is no way I am going get another shot at this. I could feel the tears begin to well up in my eyes. I had to decide to either miss my project deadline or turn in low quality work.
I flipped the paper over, and drew a less than perfect circle. I quickly cut him out and pasted on some googly eyes. The fat ghost had been born. As the glue dried, I stared into the plastic bubble eyes of my tormentor. Even though it resembled a snowball more than a ghost, it haunted me nonetheless. The teacher had placed everyone’s ghost up on the bulletin board for Halloween decoration. Mine sat at the very end, like punctuation. I had to stare at that damn thing every day for 2 weeks. Taunting me. I thought about taking him down on my own. Accidents happen you know. Maybe the cleaning crew mistaken my ghost for a coffee filter or something and threw it out. Suddenly it occurred to me. Thanksgiving is upon us, and regardless of your artistic abilities, anyone can make a turkey out of a handprint.
I glanced at the chalkboard.. looked at my paper, and began to sketch out the shape with the precision of an epileptic sniper. "Oh no" I thought to myself as I stared down at the irregular shape that donned my paper. It looked nothing like what was on the chalkboard, let alone anything that even the kindest of mothers could decipher as being a ghostly shape. I had a plan though. I’ll just flip the paper over and try again. I had to see how this whole "marker" thing was going play out. That first one was just a trial run. After all, you don’t learn how to drive by entering the Daytona 500.
I focus once more, laying pen to paper. My tongue sticking out the corner of my mouth in a Zen like state of concentration as I follow my mind's eye. However, once again, there surely must be a communication error between my hand and my brain. Instead of a ghost, my work resembled that of an amoeba with a curly pig tail.
Devastation washed over my 5 year old face. How could this be? I clamored for an explanation, questioning everything from chronic marker malfunction to slight nerve damage obtained from that big-wheel accident that I was in weeks before. I just couldn’t wrap my head around it. After all, my mother was an extremely gifted artist. So the slightest bit of genetic favoring should allow me the ability to render this ghost as well as any of the other non-gifted kids that sat in my class. Maybe I was adopted? What if my family had been lying to me all along, and this lack of ghost rendering skills has exposed the family secret!.
Defeat hung over me like a rain cloud as I sat there staring at the scribbled mess. My teacher was making her way around the classroom as most of the others had already begun the cutting process. The clock was ticking away, and craft time was going to run out if I didn’t do something quickly. I raised my hand and asked for another piece of paper. The teacher handed me a fresh canvas, but not before saying "If you can’t draw the shape, just make a circle."
A circle?? What the hell? Was this the ghost of some fat kid? I can’t just draw a circle. That’s admitting defeat, and I'll be damned if I'm going to have this black mark on my otherwise exceptional artistic record. After all, just last week I drew a huge tank battle that included rocket shooting jets and a fort with a giant cannon. If I start trying to pass circles off as ghost, I will surely lose respect in the kindergarten art community.
I once more put pen to paper, and once again it was an utter disaster. Now, I'm pretty sure if anyone else could hear the torrent of expletives and threats of violence against my teacher that were streaming through my head at the time, I would have been committed to a boys home until I was old enough for real prison. I was almost in tears. Surely arts & craft time was near the end, and I only have one good side of paper left. There is no way I am going get another shot at this. I could feel the tears begin to well up in my eyes. I had to decide to either miss my project deadline or turn in low quality work.
I flipped the paper over, and drew a less than perfect circle. I quickly cut him out and pasted on some googly eyes. The fat ghost had been born. As the glue dried, I stared into the plastic bubble eyes of my tormentor. Even though it resembled a snowball more than a ghost, it haunted me nonetheless. The teacher had placed everyone’s ghost up on the bulletin board for Halloween decoration. Mine sat at the very end, like punctuation. I had to stare at that damn thing every day for 2 weeks. Taunting me. I thought about taking him down on my own. Accidents happen you know. Maybe the cleaning crew mistaken my ghost for a coffee filter or something and threw it out. Suddenly it occurred to me. Thanksgiving is upon us, and regardless of your artistic abilities, anyone can make a turkey out of a handprint.
