Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.”
- Pablo Picasso
My cousin is a teacher. She asked if I would speak to her 9th grade class about my art business. I agreed to do it even though it meant losing sleep the night before. The thought of a bunch of people looking at me while I’m trying to put a sentence together is daunting. I hate public speaking. Heck, I couldn’t even do a read aloud to my kid’s 2nd grade class – I made her step-dad do it. It’s just that my voice cracks, my face turns red and I lose my train of thought. It’s an uncontrollable physical reaction to being the center of attention.
I joined the Zoom session and there they were. Teenagers. The future. My past. What do I say?
I wasn’t thinking about art at all. I was thinking about my 9th grade school picture. My braces, safety pin earrings and the 5 layers of shirts I’d wear instead of a bra, because bras were terrifying. It’s been 22 years since I was a freshman and now here I was. I had 10 minutes. 600 seconds to sum up who, what, when, where, and why I was an artist. I showed them some of my early paintings and compared them with my newer paintings, to show how far I had come on my own. But as I was showing off, it felt off. Just a parlor trick to get out of saying what I wanted to say. What I would have told 15 year old Anna.
I wanted to tell them that I didn’t choose art. Art chose me. It spoke to me. A subtle, soft whisper in my heart. I wanted to tell them to listen to their hearts. That art is a calling and it calls to everyone.
We are all born with creative spark, that instinct to make something out of nothing. As kids, we don’t hesitate to draw, paint, build, sing, dance—until one day, we start believing that creativity belongs only to a select few.
I wanted to tell them that art is bigger than a career path. It’s bigger than a business, a talent, or a degree. Art is a way of seeing, a way of moving through the world with curiosity and courage.
I wanted to tell them that art is a time machine - a conversation between the past and the future, a way to reach across timelines. Our creations can carry our voices beyond our own time. Speaking to people we’ll never meet, long after our hands have turned to dust.
I wanted to tell them that art is proof that ideas are real. That thoughts—just wisps of energy in our brains—can take form in the world. That we can pull something from nothing, from the ether, from the deepest places inside us, and we make it real.
I wanted to tell them to hold onto their artistic birthright. That it’s of vital importance to get a grip of their creativity and to not let go.
All this to say that I didn’t tell them any of that.
But I wish I had.
-Anna
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