The Art of Small Things, and Being Small!

I was an artist from the time I was small. I know that I drew from the time I could toddle, but my first clear memory of my own art is when I drew paper dolls. They weren’t regular paper dolls. The dolls were Inuit people. Without knowing anything about the culture, I drew a family and cut them out, over and over again. The same family, every time. The paper dolls had long, braided hair and they all had kind expressions. They wore heavy coats with the fur side facing in – except for around their faces. Their boots were thick, sealskin kamiits - the kind made by hand. I remember there was a grandmother, a father, a mother, a girl older than I was, and a baby. The mother carried the baby in her hood, and the father had a spear. They all had designs on their clothing.

By the way, traditional Inuit clothing is highly specialized and also beautiful. You can find out more about it by clicking here.

Drawings As Gifts

Every time I finished drawing the family, I would cut them out of the rectangular paper they were bound to and present them to my paternal grandmother – who would graciously tape them to her kitchen wall. I have the faintest of memories of she and my mother conversing about how strange it all was – why I kept drawing the same people over and over again, and why my grandmother was the only person deserving of having them. But my grandmother accepted every one of them without complaint and found a home for them in her kitchen. I was only 5 or 6 years old when I was drawing the paper people, and if you asked me to draw one today I could. I don’t know what happened to the paper Inuit family, but I imagine that at some point they faded from the paper they were drawn on and thrown out.

Was I remembering a past life? Was I influenced by something I saw on the CBC or in a book? I don’t know. But perhaps I stuck with art because my first memories of creating were associated with love, comfort and familiarity.

The Need to Create

Art – whether it be drawing, painting, textiles or photography – has always been a way for me to express myself. I have learned (finally, in my fifties) that I don’t do well at all if I don’t practice creating at least once a week. If my creative expression is put on the backburner, I slide into an abyss – emotionally, mentally and spiritually. Balance is restored almost immediately as soon as I step into the unknown – the blank page, the scrap fabric, the dollop of paint, or the nature walk to photograph the light touching the tree branches in a way that it always does, or will never do again. That’s the beauty of it.