Art and Play

When is the last time you played in your work?

On my first or second day here, a friend invited me to a series of artist lectures at the local library. We arrived only to find out that we were at the wrong location, on the wrong day. This was a child-inspired art night. The library staffer who filled in for the ill and absent guest instructor warmly invited us to stick around despite the confusion. Only one other person was in attendance who left after just a few minutes. We decided to make the most of it and fill our evening with art, in whatever form it took.

It ended up becoming one of my favorite memories here. It all seemed a bit ridiculous in the moment, working with construction paper scraps from the children’s classes and materials that just as well could have had a Crayola label on it. Then an interesting thing happened. I found a watercolor marker that intrigued me. And a rocky wad of graphite that was once malleable and now crumbled on the paper. I experimented. I made a terrible mess of things. I felt frustrated. And then I let go of expectation and I played.

My first marks had aimed to be intentional and creative. But things don’t really work out so well when you try to harness creativity: you need to be open to letting it flow through you. I certainly didn’t create anything that I would sell or hang in a gallery, but I did prop this piece up in my living space, smiling at its whimsy and reminding myself that it’s okay to let go of perfection.