Doing What I love

When I was a child I did four things: I drew, I wrote, I read, I assembled.

I read everything I could get my hands on. I had hundreds of books. By the time I was eight, I usually read my mother’s books, so I gave my hundreds of books to a new program started by The Smithsonian Institute, Reading is Fundamental. We had a friend, Mr. McGraff, who worked for the Smithsonian. He knew I loved to read and told me the program was intended to provide books to poor children. We never had much money, but my parents valued reading and always found a way to provide any book I wanted. I earned my own money as well, from the age of five on, and books are what I spent my money on. My personal idea of ‘poor’ has always been not having a book. The idea that there were children who didn’t have books was shocking to me. My brother helped me haul all those books up the hill to Mr. McGraff’s apartment. Mr. McGraff was shocked and touched by my donation, and I was embarrassed by his reaction. Reading was so important to me that I just couldn’t stand the idea that anyone didn’t have books. I did keep one book, Poetry for Boys and Girls, which my parents gave me for my seventh birthday.

When I was a child, I read.

In Poetry for Boys and Girls, I met Ogden Nash and Edward Lear. I met Alfred, Lord Tennyson and William Shakespeare. I met Little Willie, with his insatiable thirst for gore; and I met  - as I was going up the stair – The Man Who Wasn’t There. I met Peter Piper and Sally of Sea Shell Selling fame. I met a man who tried to save his precious daughter from a raging storm at sea, and a woman who tried to stop bells from ringing to save her lover’s life. I met my muse, in the form of hundreds of poets from all over the world, and I began writing poetry. By the time I gave the rest of my books away, I had read this book cover to cover several times, but I wasn’t finished with it. I discovered that things I didn’t understand the first time often made sense the third or fourth time. I learned that as I learned new things and had new experiences, new meaning would unfold from the same poems I had read a dozen times before. I’m still not finished with that book, and it still on my bookshelf forty-two years later.

When I was a child, I wrote.

Taking my imagination for a stroll, I would gather random things as I walked, collecting them in a brown lunch bag. I would sing as I went, or tell some tale to myself, making it all up as I went. I could do this for hours, sing and walk, and find treasure. When I returned home, I would dump my treasure out on the dinner table, and with the help of glue and wires, assemble some crazy creation out of the random bits I collected. I loved putting things together. My brother got an Erector Set when he was ten, but he had no interest in it. I was always building something, often mixing my treasures with his Erector Set, Tinkertoys, and Lincoln Logs. Then I would create elaborate stories about my creations.

When I was a child, I assembled things.

I drew often. I drew copies of line drawings from any book I could find. I drew from photographs, too. My Grandmother gave my brother a Birding book on his thirteenth birthday. He had no more interest in birds than he had in the Erector Set. I read that book from cover to cover, and hunted for the birds. I’ve never seen most of them in life, but when I was eight, I drew them all, in ink. I have one picture still, drawn with a leaky blue ball point pen. My mother kept it and I found it among her things after she died. I don’t know what amazed me more, that she kept it all those years, or that it was good.

When I was a child, I drew.

I never stopped reading. Most years I average almost a book a day. I read from nearly every section of Mr. Dewey’s catalog. I want to know it all. I kept writing, off and on. I write to think things through, so I wrote more when I had problems than when things were going well. I wrote poems when so moved, but I’ve never written poetry consistently. I’ve saved a few hundred over the years, writing the reasonably good ones in a special book. I randomly wrote stories, never consistently. Mostly though, as an adult, I didn’t write much.

I also didn’t draw or create assemblages much. My drawing skills deteriorated as a result. I picked it back up, randomly, and have improved somewhat. I also started assembling bits and pieces again, and began to experiment with different mediums to create my assemblages. I developed my own style of sculpting my visions. When people visit my shop, I tell them if it’s a bit odd, I made it. If it’s normal, I didn’t.

I spent most of my adult life not doing the things I love to do. When I finally decided to stop slaving away in a “real” job and do what I love to do, life got a heck of lot happier. It got a little poorer too, but it’s worth the trade. I am a creator; my soul is content.

© Copyright 2011 Rikki Ansell

all rights reserved