In like a lion, out like a lamb.

I am a person who struggles with creativity. As a kid I had a hard time with the typical artistic projects we were tasked with. I was always good with letters, words and books, but much more intimidated when presented with paints and a blank canvas. I have an old, but very distinct memory of a little art project that we had to do in the first grade that went all wrong.

In March of 1984, my teacher was Ms. Hambleton, who wore a lot of blue eye shadow. Ms. Hambleton was very particular about her name. It was “Ms.”, not “Mrs.” or “Miss”, and you’d better be damn sure you pronounced the “B”. Ms. HamBleton taught us about how March can come “in like a lion” and go “out like a lamb”. We each made the face of a lion or lamb out of a paper plate, construction paper and glue, and then Ms. Hambleton displayed them all in the hallway outside of our classroom.

The trouble all started when I made the eyes for my lion. Ms. Hambleton had cut out all kinds of eyes for us to glue onto our respective lions and lambs. These eyes were made from black construction paper…plain, eye-shaped blobs, totally lifeless and dull. I thought they looked wrong, and took it upon myself to make different eyes. I cut out eyes from a piece of white paper and coloured in the pupils with a pencil, and then glued them onto the lion’s face. Ms. Hambleton would have none of this. She wanted all of our lions and lambs to look the same.

I don’t remember exactly what happened next, but I ended up crying in the classroom. Ms. Hambleton didn’t like a scene in her classroom and marched me out into that hallway to have a little talk. I needed to follow the instructions.

In retrospect I can understand that this teacher was a bit of a control freak. I may be going out on a limb here, but I really do think that this little incident had an impact on my willingness to try new things when it comes to art and creative thinking. She stifled me, dammit!

Later on in the seventh grade, my art teacher, Mrs. Byers, saw something in me. She taught us a lot about art, things like colour theory and composition and other topics that were more advanced than most seventh graders would care about. When our class went on a field trip to the Art Gallery of Ontario Mrs. Byers provided a running commentary for me specifically. I felt special, like she had recognized some sort of ability in me. She recommended me for Art Camp that year, an annual event that changed me in a fundamental way. Only two students were chosen to go and she chose ME.

Discussing Art Camp will require a separate post entirely. For now I will just say that it exposed me to a whole new group of people I previously hadn’t had access to…a whole new kind of people that until then I hadn’t known existed. It allowed me to explore the visual arts in ways I hadn’t until then, and haven’t since.

I recently said to a friend that I struggle with creativity. She said that I am creative. That what I do here is creative, even if it isn’t conventional Art. I think in many ways she’s right. This is the time of day I feel like making something, even if that “something” consists of several paragraphs on a computer screen. Clicking “Publish” is my way of creating these days. Hopefully I’ll find the courage to experiment with tangible art again soon, but until then, this hobby is satisfying my need for creativity quite well.

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