The Accidental Artist

Why I took off the jersey and picked up a paintbrush...

Have you ever felt put in a box? Limited by a category? Stereotyped by how people see you?

There are so many ways to get stuck in one version of yourself. So many things telling us if we’re one way, we can’t be another.

If you’re kind, you’re not strong. If you’re a woman, you’re supposed to want children. If you like hair & make up, you’re superficial. If you’re an athlete, you’re not an artist.

None of these statements are true, but they are taught…people say these things without saying these things.

We implicitly learn to put ourselves and others in boxes.

No one ever told me I couldn’t be an artist, but as an athlete I never felt the arts were my place.

For anyone familiar with High School Musical, this story may sound cliche…but how many of us have a story of a time we felt scared to try something different? Were discouraged from joining a new activity? Or held back from revealing our full selves? Simply because it didn’t fit an outdated or incomplete picture of ourselves.

Thank God I was forced to expand my picture.

In my 2nd year of university, I received my 6th concussion. For the next 8 months, I was useless - daily headaches, dizziness & brain fog affected my mood, appetite, sleep, and ability to do almost anything.

Except art.

A few weeks after the concussion, I went to see the university psychologist. They had one of those “adult colouring books” in their office with some pencil crayons. With literally nothing else to do, I started one of the pages and took a few home. I was depressed from the brain injury and lack of ability to engage in everyday activities so I reached out of the darkness and grabbed onto the seemingly only thing available - a coloured pencil.

I couldn’t play basketball. I couldn’t go to school. I couldn’t read, watch tv or socialize with people for extended periods of time…but I could draw, I could colour and I could paint.

I didn’t need to be good at it, I was just grateful to be able to do it.

Something I had always avoided because I thought I’d be bad at it and didn’t know how to start ended up being my sanctuary. The peace I gained from colouring in outlines on a page, experimenting with brush strokes on a canvas and sketching the landscape around me was SO freeing. It was a breath of fresh air to have the time and space to explore something without the pressure of having to achieve anything.

The end of my competitive athletic career was the beginning of my realization that identity was not attached to outcome. When a limit was put on my external identity, pieces of my internal identity that had been limited were allowed to flourish.

In the decade since, I’ve been more intentional about examining what activities bring me peace & fulfillment. I’ve been more intentional about how I let other people’s opinions affect my choices. And I’ve been more intentional about how I spend my time.

Becoming an artist was an accident. How I now spend my time is anything but.

I do not have it figured out and am by no means perfect, but that’s the whole point…

Perfection is the enemy of improvement and comparison is the thief of all joy.

My concussion and subsequent exploration of art made me realize the point of doing things was not to do, but to be. I learned that what we do is not all that we are. We are more than what we do. We are more than what others see. We are more than any stereotype. We are more than we even know.

Allowing myself to be more than one thing has been essential to my joy, growth & authenticity.

I do not fit in a box - and neither do you.

Break down the walls that have been holding you back and try something new today!

I hope you get to be every piece of who you are this week :)

Sincerely,

Clare