Kaleidoscope

Play is the most important element in discovering who you are.

"Remember those childhood days spent running in your bare feet, playing make-believe, and, most of all, living life with fearless enthusiasm? That spirit is an important element in discovering who you are and what you love to do---and it's inside you right now, waiting to be rediscovered. Here's the best part, you had it all along."

Living Out Loud, Keri Smith

I bought this book a few months ago and have really only gotten past the first few pages. It is full of ideas to spark your creative energy. I bought it in the hopes that it might help me to find a space in my life that felt comfortable enough for me to let out some of my otherwise stifled creative energy.

I would say that I have always considered myself a creative person. As a child making animals out of play dough and choreographing a dance routine to "Wake Me Up Before You Go Go" were daily activities. The problem for me came around my sophomore year in high school. I had an art teacher that was very critical of my version of art. I knew it was not the right class for me from the start, we spent the first two weeks drawing cubes and pipes. Then we did a project called kaleidoscope. We had to draw a picture in a triangle and repeat that same picture in 7 other triangles with each pair mirroring each other. This teacher was looking for precision in each replication, that sort of thing was not my strong suite. I can't even remember the rest of the projects from that semester but I remember that I found any excuse not to go, got in trouble for trying chewing tobacco (almost made me throw up, by the way), got sent to the library a dozen times and maybe even to the Principal's office once, and, in the end I got a D. My confidence in my ability to create art that was worth anything higher than a C- was shot, and so was my parents. It was the last art class I ever took. From that point on I figured I should have listened to my parents in the first place and (with a little push) I signed up for more science and math classes. Chemistry-sucked. Physics-like a foreign language. Trigonometry-survived on guessing and a very old and slightly senile teacher. Latin-please...Biology-well, that was something I was okay at. I had a good teacher. I thought it was interesting. I got good grades. I went to college. I wanted to major in textile design. My parents said no and while I blamed them for my bad grades for years, in a way I think I was relieved that they said no. I really didn't think I would be any good at it anyway. I changed my major to biology.

Now here I am. I'm 30. Thirty. Three zero. I am 15 years from my nasty art teacher. I am an adult. Adults are supposed to KNOW. This is what I know-
10 years is too long for an undergraduate degree.
Maybe it is not the right fit for me.
But I have invested so much time and money.
Probably isn't the right fit for me.
But it means everything to my Dad.
It's not the right fit for me.
But I'm stubborn. I'm not a quitter. I can do it.

This is what I don't know-
Everything

Shit. I hate this. Reading my bio book is like reading a foreign language. All I want to do is play with my boy, bake some pumpkin cookies, dream of being with my family for Thanksgiving, paint my toenails, go to bed early and make animals out of play dough and choreograph a dance routine to "Wake Me Up Before You Go Go"

When I was a kid we went to this place in KC called Kaleidoscope. There was a maze full of activities like a wall of things to feel, a table of pins that you could stick your hands under and the pins would push up and make an impression of your hand, places to make weird sounds, and at the very end was a room with 6 or 8 stations, each with their own art project. I remember drawing a picture on a board and then sending it through this machine to make a puzzle. I remember making a hat with springing ears popping off of it. I remember cardboard sunglasses with pink lenses that we could draw all over. It was great. After your twelfth birthday you could no longer go through the maze and do the craft stations. After 12 you got to be a supervisor at the station and you just watched what the kids were doing to make sure that they stuck the puzzle in the machine correctly or that they didn't run out of glitter for their sunglasses. I think that is the problem. There shouldn't be an age limit on creativity. There isn't a point where math and science are a better use of time. There is just a kind of person that math and science are their preferred use of time. And those of us that would prefer to be in the Kaleidoscope should get to be in it without shame or conflict or concern about how accurate our cube drawings are.