How to Be an Artist in Under One Year
It is in the process of learning how not to pretend – how to actually be ourselves – that we find, over time, the head-space (the energy) to imagine again. A quote if I may, from Annie Dillard, “No child on earth was ever meant to be ordinary, and you can see it in them, and they know it, too, but then the times get to them and they wear out their brains learning what folks expect, and spend all their strength trying to rise over those same folks.” Children instinctively let their minds wander and construct alternate realities for themselves. For comfort, entertainment, or some subliminal need that the child, in wandering, has somehow forgotten. The need is but a means to an end. A happenstance catalyst for imagination. Of course, the glorified wanderings of children are often not refined, though they may be odd. Their imaginary realms are sorely lacking in backstory and tend to be alternately walled or flimsy around the edges. The world ends abruptly or simply peters-out in uncertainty. Both types of perimeter prompts a swift return to the central theme, be it space, monsters, unicorns, dinosaurs, trains, insects, ballerinas, or large reptiles.