When did I stop loving the things I used to?

You'll have to make do with this for now Pat

There’s a picture in my baby book that is probably one of my favorite pictures of me. I’m eight months old and I’m sitting at a little white plastic table in a little kid chair. My hair is curly and I have a crayon in my hand. The caption my mother wrote next to the picture reads “your love affair with crafts began at eight months and went on and on and on…”

I’ve always loved that picture because I thought it so completely captured me, who I was then and who I’ve always been. I’ve been drawing longer than I’ve been walking, and just about as long as I’ve been talking. A lot of things have changed about me in 23 years but I’ve always been an artist.

For the first time in my life I’m questioning that. I haven’t picked up a paintbrush or drawing pencil in 3 years. When I packed up my room to move I left the box with all my art supplies and my easel behind. I told myself I just didn’t have room but the truth is I don’t feel like making room. When the art draught started I blamed it on the mess at UCFV. The experience I had during my last semester had just been so stressful, so soul crushing that I wanted to leave everything about it behind, including all art related activities. I embraced the identity of the academic whole heartedly, blissfully setting aside my conte crayons and prismacolours in favour of McLuhan and Marx and Bourdieu and forgot about the artist that had lived there for 20 years.

I can’t blame UCFV anymore. That story is long since over but I’m left wondering where the intense need to paint and draw or just scribble has gone and if I’ll ever get it back. I did bring my portfolio with me to Burnaby. Looking through it, I remember the girl who created these things, the girl who spent nearly 20 hours painting individual stitches to depict a pair of wool kilt socks, the same one who’s head was filled with so many images it was always a matter of just choosing one.

I can’t draw anymore. The ability is still there yes but when I open my old, long neglected sketchbook, pen in hand, I am met with apathy and frustration. The blank pages that used to be filled with promise are now just empty.

When did drawing stop being cathartic? When did I stop turning to my expensive box of fancy crayons whenever I was in a bad mood? And how do I start loving it again?