WOMANKIND’S Art Challenge
Day one: At the beginning of the school year I wrote on the wall above my kitchen table, “Put paintbrush to canvas, pen to paper, bow to string.” This was meant to be a reminder to spend time doing what replenishes me. I’m an elementary music teacher and, I’m not going to lie, these past few years have knocked me sideways. I’ve been teaching since 2004, and the job has become more emotionally demanding and time consuming. So, I started off this school year promising myself to focus on self-care through playing my cello, painting, and writing. My daily schedule looks like this: be at school by 8am, teach eight to nine classes, come home to my cello studio, and teach three to four lessons. Before my mum passed away, she said, “Alice, you can’t keep this up. You’re burning the candle at both ends.” That was over ten years ago, and I still hear her echoing in my mind, “Alice, slow down. Find balance.” I understand, but I’m also trying to survive and make a living. So, I burn the candle at both ends to make sure I have a roof over my head and food in my belly. Every morning before school I look at the note I wrote to myself on the wall and I tell myself, “Just wait until the weekend, you’ll have time.” And, I never do. So, here we go. Five minutes a day. Put paintbrush to canvas, pen to paper, bow to string. But, mostly, paintbrush to canvas.
Day two: As I sit down at the kitchen table and mentally prepare myself for a limited time with my art, my eyes focus on a photograph that is propped up against a jar of paintbrushes. It’s an old black and white photo of my mum, standing in a garden, posing with one of her dogs. I start to think of the legacies mothers leave their daughters in terms of habits and thought processes, both positive and negative. I saw her daily struggle to carve out time for her writing. When I was little, the soundscape to my childhood was her electric typewriter humming and clacking away, melting into the daily rhythms of our lives. Later, when I was a teenager, the typewriter was unplugged, dustcover patiently collecting dust. And years later it disappeared as her life gave way to surviving the daily realities of having a family and a career. What inherited thought processes do I want to nourish? The thoughts my mum had when she was young and hopeful of becoming a writer, or the thoughts she had when life had worn her down and she was just trying to survive? What would she say now if she were sitting at this table with me? I take one last glance at her photo and begin to pull dusty paints from the shelves.
Day three: If I were completely honest with myself, I usually decide not to paint because I don’t have big enough spaces of time. Whenever I’m painting the world slips away and I fall into a meditative state as hours slip by. I woke up this morning in a self-imposed art stupor, exhausted because I stayed up well past my bedtime. Sometimes I feel like it’s exhausting holding the ideas for my art at bay until I can pay full attention to them. But then I wonder, “Is the exhaustion of waiting different than the exhaustion of cutting into much needed rest?” Which one is more sustainable? How do I find balance? This time, as I’m sitting down at my kitchen table, I set a timer. Thirty minutes, that’s all I get. It feels wrong.
Day four: Today as I’m painting, I look up and notice how the setting sun reflects off of one of my brother’s stained-glass pieces. He makes a living as a stained-glass artist. Sometimes he has to pick up odd jobs to make ends meet, but for the most part he’s living his life on his terms as an artist. Sometimes I’m a little jealous, but I also realise the grass is always greener. My thoughts wander to a conversation we had over a year ago. We were comparing the different career paths we took and how we view art in our lives. He was wondering how I find time for art with my busy work schedule. I was wondering how he pushes through when his paycheck can be sporadic at best. “Well, kiddo,” he said, “You do what you can, until you can’t any more.” I wonder why that has stuck in my mind and how I can apply that to finding balance.
It’s late Sunday evening and I’m lying on my living room floor staring up at the shadows of the pine trees though the window. I’m trying to muster up the energy to go to bed before I fall asleep on the floor. Why am I so tired? I think about the challenge and feel guilty that I was so unproductive today. “Hold up,” I think, “That was a strange thought.” I mentally go over all the things I did today. I cleaned the house, did laundry, did the dishes, went grocery shopping, caught up on work emails, mapped out some lesson plans, entered grades, mowed the lawn, and weeded the back yard. I, however, did not get to my painting. Perhaps this exercise of five minutes daily has shown me that I need
