Tapping In

Not every brushstroke is going to be magic. Not every day working on a painting is going to produce something wonderful. Sometimes you have to be content with adequate. 

I have been an artist for most of my adult life. And come to think of it, most of my childhood as well. But I’m not sure that counts. Every child is an artist until proven otherwise by life, critique, comparing themselves to their peers, or simply by lack of enjoyment. 

As children, we are everything, all at once. We are teachers, pilots, cowboys, and pirates, all in one day. And sometimes, singing orphans cleaning floors (my sister and I played “Annie” a lot.) 

Saying a child isn’t an artist is like saying a mother or father isn’t a parent. It’s inherent, intrinsically linked to them like a state of being. Every child has the imagination to see whatever they want in front of them and make it entirely real. They create props by drawing, cutting, sticking, and pasting, and building forts out of pillows and cardboard boxes. Our coffee table was my pirateship, for instance. I drew Penny’s “computer-book” from the Inspector Gadget cartoon in my notebook, long before iPads were a thing. They don’t say it doesn’t look realistic or isn’t good enough - it gets the job done, and their imagination takes care of the rest. 

So when do we split off and decide that some of us are artists and some aren’t? As children, every piece of art is refrigerator-magnet worthy, to be hung, and praised, and admired. But at some point, we decide that some children are better at it than others, and the others wander off to become actual teachers, pilots, and cowboys (hopefully not pirates). 

I think the children have this beautiful open channel to wherever it is creativity comes from. It’s what makes them, at times, know what’s right and wrong simply by feeling. It’s what keeps them playing and imagining. And it’s what makes them create art, without judging or criticising. 

This channel becomes lost to us as adults, at least most of the time. But every once in a while, it opens up, and this is when we create magic.

My best friend, her daughter, and I all went to one of the paint and sips to do a pet portrait. My friend had been hesitant to paint in public, so it was a big deal that she came with me to do this. She was painting her little cat, Willow. All of a sudden, she looked at me with this sparkle in her eye and said, “Look at her paw”. When I saw the look in her eyes, I knew she had “tapped in,” so to speak. She explained how she had held the brush just right, and this wonderful little squiggle came out and created the cutest little daintiness of her paw. 

I know that feeling very well. It’s almost like you’re not in control of the brush; it just dances across the canvas in front of you and creates magic. Sometimes those moments are brief, sometimes they can last for hours or even days. 

I remember getting to a point where simply grabbing the pencil, pen, or charcoal was enough to open up that channel, and the dance began. Rather than creating 10 bad drawings to get one good one, which was usually par for the course, it was all good, all the time! This happened to me in my third year of creating art every single day. Particularly, drawing consistently induced this magic. Weekly “croquis” classes (that’s what we call it in Danish, but I’m sure it’s originally French), drawing live models, by this third year, I felt like I got a power boost in a video game. It was the closest I have come to an almost constant open channel of creativity. It felt like the wonder and imagination of being a kid again. 

When I was on my music-art journey, I felt it too. When a song almost pours out of you faster than you can write it down. My song “Diamond In The Dust” was like that. It actually came flooding out right in the middle of another song I was writing. This makes me convinced that every kind of artist knows what I’m talking about when I talk about “tapping in”. 

These days, that special channelling comes and goes. Some days I’m in the zone. Others, not so much. I am ok with those days, I don’t let them frustrate me or make me think I can’t paint anymore. I learned to cope with them and use them to my advantage. I used to call those days “background days” because I would use these “off” days to do some of the less challenging work, like painting part of a background or even the sides of a canvas. It helps me keep productive even when I’m not entirely inspired. 

But when that channel opens, when I “tap in,” it still feels as magical as it did back in art school. It feels as magical as it did when I was a kid. I can step back and look at my canvas and feel like someone else did that.

I wonder if I continue to work at the pace I am working now, will I get closer and closer to that state of near-constant magic I had once before? Will it take just as long, or even longer? Or will it come quicker, and more often, considering the work I have already put in? And if I do get to that point, will I be able to take it even further this time? 

Until then, I will enjoy those moments of auspiciousness, however fleeting they may be. And I will continue to be ok with my adequacy.