Last year, all our lives turned upside down due to COVID19. After the first lockdown in NSW, we finally started to socialise again with some restrictions. My friend J visited me in Newcastle for a weekend and she wanted to do a live drawing class that she had seen advertised on SBS.
So on one Saturday night, we sat down with glasses of wine, a stack of scrap paper and some pencils that she had brought up from Sydney. We followed the instructions on TV to draw their live models...
To my complete and utter surprise, I had a lot of fun.
I had never considered myself to be an "arty" person. In fact, the narrative I had was that I'd used all my "artistic cells" on music, and that I was never good at art, whether making or appreciating.
But that live drawing class planted a tiny little seed in my consciousness. At that time, I didn't even have a rubber at home, nor a pencil sharpener. The only pencil I had was in my violin case, used to mark fingerings on music.
A few weeks later, I walked past an art shop that was closing down. I had never even gone into this kind of shop before, but the almost-empty shelves beckoned me - surely it was easier to choose supplies when there was hardly anything left? I bought a small tin of charcoal pencils, and a notepad. It cost just over $10 - I can afford that, right? Just see how it goes. I thought to myself
So that is how I started to draw.
I drew first some plants and flowers from my garden. Then I found an ancient Italian vegetarian cookery book with lots of pencil drawings of Italy, and these really appealed so I started to copy them. Then I started to draw whatever I felt like.
It is liberating. I'm not drawing for anyone or anything, to be assessed or even to become competent. I draw simply because I like drawing and I feel like drawing.
These days I have little stubs of charcoal or pencils in various handbags, and I find myself scribbling things in my journal, on the back of receipts, or even on napkins. Though I experimented with other mediums, I come back always to pencil and charcoal. I love the process of outlining in pencils and how charcoal smudges messily.
Thank you to all the random people who have come up to me in cafes and parks to remark upon the mere fact that a middle aged woman is drawing for joy, however childish the doodles look. Quite a few have said that I am "brave", as if society expects that you can only draw if it "looks good". What does "look good" mean anyway?
The other day, I was reading by the sea, and this passage in the book brought back a puzzle piece from the depths of my memory.
As a leaving present to Max Hodler, Gustav had made a copy of the map of Mittelland in his room. He'd coloured the land green and the rivers blue. From <The Gustav Sonata> by Rose Remain.
This sentence suddenly brought me back to when I was 12 years old.
We were extremely poor at the time, both my parents working multiple jobs to establish financial security after we had moved to Australia. Somehow we had become acquainted with a wealthy family, who had a little girl called Angela born in the same month as me. It's hard to imagine now, how my parents must have felt. What was it like for them to drop me off at their big luxurious house, knowing that I would be having fancy afternoon teas that they could never imagine?
Angela and I were both learning the piano. Where I was playing on an old out-of-tune piano with wonky keys that the neighbours had thrown out on the street, she had a shiny black Yamaha piano in which you could see your reflection. And all the keys on her piano worked. I had insisted to my parents that I did not need piano lessons - in retrospect, even the 12 year old me knew that we did not need more financial strain in our lives. Perhaps my parents thought I could learn something from Angela, since she was getting "proper instructions".
In the month that we both turned 12, Angela was extremely excited about the birthday party she was going to have. It is not a tradition in my family to celebrate birthdays, but Angela's kindly mother said that I would be welcome to celebrate with them.
Angela had been talking for weeks about the presents she was going to receive. I knew there was nothing I could bring to her as a gift that would compare to those presents, but I came up with a genius idea - we both loved the Simpsons and I thought I could make her a drawing of the Simpson family. I can't remember how long it took me to make the drawing, but I was really proud of it at the end. I had traced the outline till it was firm and coloured it exactly right. I rolled up the drawing and tied it with a little bow.
At the birthday party, Angela was wearing a beautiful doll-like dress, she looked just like a princess. All her friends from her fancy private school were there, and I felt very out of place. She was so excited, exclaiming at each present after she tore the packaging from them one by one. When she came to my present, she took one look at it, said thanks and placed it aside.
After so many years, I remember exactly the feeling that I had at that moment. My soul had been crushed because I had worked so hard to produce something that I was really proud of, but it was put aside thoughtlessly as if it was something of no value.
I never drew for pleasure again.
Until I somehow rediscovered it 25 years later during COVID.
I wonder where Angela is now, and whether she is still playing the piano. And where is that drawing of the Simpson family? Is it decomposing in a landfill heap somewhere?
What a strange side effect of the pandemic, but here, I have my drawing mojo back.
And I love it, because it brings me joy.
