1. I would create books that are childhood favorites.

Some people read Goodnight, Moon until they think they will go batty.* Chicka Chicka Boom Boom** (by Bill Martin, Jr.) was that kind of book for us. My kids LOVED it when the letters all came crashing down. (Don’t worry; although some got injured in the making of the book [see D, E, and F above], it’s all good in the end.)

2. I would be a maker of fun, creative, playful books for children.

A few years back, I attended a conference for writers and illustrators of children’s books. Here’s what I loved about that conference: Unlike many such events for the writers of literary, adult fare, this talk of this conference seemed focus on the audience. It wasn’t so much about personal expression as it was about connecting with kids.

I don’t know if that is why the attendees of that conference were such a different crowd than the writers I’d encountered at literary events, but they were. I felt a comfort there like I’ve never felt in any other group of creatives. They were unpretentious and warm and generous. I felt as if I’d found my people.

Although I create for selfish reasons (I think we all do), I’ve found I can’t stick with it unless I’m doing it for someone else. And can I tell you, I’ve never met any adult who relishes and delights in story the way children do. Watching story time is the absolute favorite part of my job.*** I would so love to write a book for children and be the person who creates the kind of excitement in story I’ve only ever seen in children.

3. I would have a deeper relationship with my world.

This post was inspired by this book, my latest book indulgence. (You can find it here.***) In it, Ehlert talks about how everything in the world is potential material for her work. When she goes for a walk, she’s looking at the world with an eye to all the visual possibilities inherent in the things that cross her path–leaves, spent pea pods, a cherry tomato.

Such looking creates a different sort of relationship with the world, something I’ve had with writing at various times in my life.

4. I would be a generous artist.

I love the way Ehlert lays her process open for readers, so we can see that art doesn’t happen by magic. It is clear in Scraps that art comes from watching and playing and planning and doing. She demystifies the process by showing us how she takes inspiration from the world, and then how she turns that inspiration into stories and gorgeous collage illustrations. We get to see drafts and notes and sketches.

Too often, I think, we act as if there can be only so much creative success in the world. I believe there is enough for all of us to have some. It seems Ehlert does, too.

5. I would work to expand others’ notions of what artistic expression is.

In another of Ehlers’s books, Hands: Growing Up to Be an Artist, she writes about how fortunate she was to grow up with parents who used their hands (which she also writes about in Scraps). (The second image above comes from that book.) Her father built things, and her mother gardened and sewed, and both provided Ehlert with her own work space and scraps of materials to create with. I love her message that all such creative work is part of artistic creation.

6. I would exude happiness.

 Doesn’t she look like a happy person? I know there is much more to a successful career as a children’s book writer/illustrator than simply playing with bits of paper all day long, but I think that getting to spend a large portion of one’s time playing with bits of paper might make me smile like that, too. 🙂

How about you?

If you could be any writer or artist, who would you be? If I had to choose only one, I don’t know if I could. But Lois Ehlert would definitely be on my list.

Oh, and I almost forgot…

Ehlert has been a source of inspiration and instruction as I continue to work on my Valentine for Cane:

 

*If you are or have been one who’s read Goodnight, Moon a million and a half times (or so), you must check out this post from The Ugly Volvo. But please don’t click away until you leave a comment telling me about your favorite childhood books/authors. 😉 Because I could talk children’s books all the live-long day.

**There are no affiliate links in this post, but if I’m writing about a book I want to link you to a source for it. I link to Powell’s because it is an independent bookstore and local to me. It’s a treasure and one of my favorite places in the world.

**I am the media coordinator for a public school district, which means that I oversee 10 school libraries. I would rather be a librarian in one school library (so I could do story time rather than just watch it!), but Oregon school librarians were decimated in the cuts following the 2008 recession and we now have only 1 half-time certified librarian in our district:  me.

You ever buy something not really knowing why or when you will use it, but you buy it just because it’s too great to leave behind?

That would explain this purchase:

I found this a few years back at the Multnomah County Library’s annual used book sale.  I suppose I loved it because it reminded me of my childhood. Ed Emberley’s books were hot in the 70s when I was a kid.

But it was more than that. I’ve always longed to be able to draw things, and I’ve never known how. The promise of this book is that if you can draw simple lines and shapes, you can draw the whole world.

But like so many things that speak to some long-buried creative longing, I bought this book and put it on the shelf and forgot about it. In fact, it wasn’t until I was purging my books right after the new year that I rediscovered it. This weekend, thinking about how to create this year’s Valentine card for Cane, I brought it out again.

Wouldn’t you know it, Emberley had just what I needed:  A scooter. And mountains and trees. Which is how I was able to create this:

I began with the idea that whatever I created, it was all just an exercise. I ended up with a page full of exercises, some taken directly from Emberely, and others that I came up with as I gave myself permission to branch off from his:

To draw the scooter I needed to look at a photo. I did a Google image search for “scooter back view” and found several that helped me. The Emberley exercises helped me see the scooter as a set of shapes; now I’m seeing everything I look at that way.

Will I use any of this directly in my Valentine? I don’t know. What I do know is that I learned some lessons from this exercise that I will carry into whatever the Valentine becomes–and into other creative projects:

1. Most complex things can be broken down into simple component parts.

2. Hard things can become easy when we’re able to break them down into small, simple parts.

3. It helps to think in layers–to ask, What needs to come first?

4. Small tasks (drawing only a scooter) are good for learning brand-new skills. You get to start over (and over and over) right away.

5. Working on only one small part at a time is good for developing a design. You get to start over (and over and over) right away.

6. Starting over (and over and over) frequently allows you to see progress quickly, so that you don’t get discouraged.

7. A total fail needs to be kept in proper perspective. I had only one total fail in 8 exercises. That’s an 88% success rate!

Just as important as learning some things about creative process, I also had a ton of fun. There’s just something about a handful of colorful markers that makes me feel good.

No better way to spend a sunny Sunday twilight than sitting at the kitchen table with some paper, some markers, a cup of tea, and my favorite guy.

 

How about you?

Any other Emberley fans out there? Any other good resources for learning how to draw? Great ideas for how I can turn this into my Valentine?  Just want to chat a bit, share an exercise/experience of your own? I always love hearing from others.

Penguin Books, © 2009

Matthew Crawford is a philosopher and a mechanic and an entrepreneur. Although an examination of work might seem ill-suited to a blog that proclaims to be about the exploration of creative play, I don’t believe that work and play are opposite ends of a continuum or two sides of a coin–any more than I believe that philosophy and mechanics are two entirely distinct disciplines.

Crawford’s book tackles education, economics, morality, and work. As I read, I intend to capture in a series of posts excerpts that speak directly to questions about creative work/play. If you’d like to enter into a conversation with me about these words through the comments, please do. 

“I want to avoid the precious images of manual work that intellectuals sometimes traffic in. I also have little interest in wistful notions of a “simpler” life that is somehow more authentic, or more democratically valorous for being “working class.” I do, in fact, want to rehabilitate the honor of the trades, as being choice-worthy work, but to do so from my own experience, which I find is not illuminated by any of these fraught cultural ideals.”

“Introduction,” page 6

Hmmm…is this why I sometimes chafe against simple living blogs–especially the especially beautiful ones? I come from working-class people. My people made things from necessity, not for play–although I find evidence of artful intention in their works that remain. As I attempt to cultivate the same skills–for example, to learn to knit and sew with craftsmanship, or to grow food and preserve it–I feel more comfortable when I label those activities as play than work. The thing is, I get to choose in a way that those who came before me did not. I am engaging in those activities for pleasure, not necessity. Is that the only real difference between work and play? In some ways, I feel more inauthentic when I do those things, as if I am playing house. It reminds me of my college days, when I was “poor.” True, I lived on very little. I lived in some pretty terrible places. But I don’t presume that I really know anything about living in poverty. I always knew that if I were really in dire straits, I had a safety net of family to catch me, and I think that makes all the difference in whether or not one is truly poor. So I don’t think I can know what value it adds to a life to make things ourselves when there is no other choice but to do so.

“The satisfactions of manifesting oneself concretely in the world through manual competence have been known to make a man quiet and easy. They seem to relieve him of the felt need to offer chattering interpretations of himself to vindicate his worth. he can simply point:  the building stands, the car now runs, the lights are on.”

“A Brief Case for the Useful Arts,” page 15

Yes. I would like to be relieved of the need to offer chattering interpretations of myself.

“…creativity is a by-product of mastery of the sort that is cultivated through long practice. It seems to be built up through submission (think a musician practicing scales, or Einstein learning tensor algebra).”

“The Separation of Thinking from Doing,” page 51

“The musician’s power of expression is founded upon a prior obedience; her musical agency is built up from an on-going submission. To what? To her teacher, perhaps, but this is incidental rather than primary–there is such a thing as the self-taught musician. Her obedience rather is to the mechanical realities of her instrument….

I believe the example of the musician sheds light on the basic character of human agency, namely, that it arises only within concrete limits that are not of our making….

In any hard discipline, whether it be gardening, structural engineering, or Russian, one submits to things that have their own intractable ways.”

“To Be Master of One’s Own Stuff,” pages 64-65

“Creativity is the byproduct of mastery”–This is why I feel the need to do exercises as I embark on this journey to explore creativity, especially in areas in which I have little experience. It is easy to look at the creative work of those who are accomplished and think, “I can do that.” And then, I sit down at a table with my gathered materials and feel blocked. I have no ideas of my own. I have no vision. The vision comes from the doing, not the other way around.

What is it we submit to? As Crawford says, the laws of our materials, the “concrete limits that are not of our making.” But also, I think, to the truth that we must submit before we can create. We have to learn and try and fail. We have to do, we can’t just look.

********

That’s all for this entry. I will add others as I continue reading.