i've been drawing ever since before i can remember. i always knew to stay inside the lines and to color in one direction in my coloring books. i remember realizing at some point before i was five that the shape of the human face looks more like the letter "u" rather than a big giant circle. and at some point, i began doing exact copies of the disney characters from the movie boxes. i could blow them up from there two inch size to the exact image but the size of a whole sheet of paper. when i broke my right arm just before the summer after my fourth grade year, i learned to draw with my left hand. the pictures were shakier, but there was no doubt that the trees were pine and the house was a cabin and the shadows in the background were mountains. i had to draw or paint or sculpt something at least every couple of days. then i put my art away for a year or two. and when i picked it up again my sophomore year at graceland, i was a different artist. it was abstract. the pencil drawings were shadows of dream pieces. the oil pastel drawings were bold. but again i have put my art away. and i miss the chalk dust in the air and on my eyelashes. i miss the colors all over my hands because i can't help using my fingers and hands to smear and blend the colors. i miss thinking of kevin with every pencil drawing of random images. kevin is the reason for this sudden realization. i never knew kevin but i saw one of his pictures once and it has never left my mind. and i think that when i picked up my art again in college, my abstract thinking came from subconscious thoughts of kevin. he was my dad's nephew, and my mom even knew him before she met my dad. mom says that he was the sweetest man and every time anyone talks about him, they have this look in their eyes that tells me he was a gift to anyone who knew him. i saw a picture of him last night; i had never seen a picture of him before. and i wanted to be there in that picture. i wanted to be able to see all of his art and to hear him talk about life and to feel his presence and to know him like his family and friends knew him. i want to pick up my art again and i don't want to stop like i keep doing. and i also want to learn more about kevin as i grow as an artist. he was an amazing person. he died of aids several years ago but his memory is vivid with anyone who ever knew him and those of us who've only heard about him.
when i wrote this, it was at a time when my creativity came and went...sometimes taking years! now that i've been up here in lake bluff and not working...there's no way i will ever stop creating! and with every drawing or painting completed, i wonder what kevin would think if he was still here.
