Monday, November 17, 2008

Yet another of life's imponderables




Reproductions are kind of lousy but it gives you an idea of what once I did
I had a curious internal change transpire in 1992. It’s one I am still attempting to find answers for, but have met with no real success. Indeed, I don’t really know where to look. I may be an accredited counsellor, but I am not a psychologist/psychiatrist. You got troubles with your bad behavior, come and see me. You want me to suggest possible reasons for your smoking of, injecting of, drinking of substances that stand in good stead of killing you, and I can probably take a stab.

But, you want me to assess the whys and wherefores of some of my own stuff, and I end up nonplused beyond the realm of guessing.

So, back to 1992. It was a tumultuous year to say the least. Sometimes agonizing, sometimes exultant, but always relentless. In early June of that year I took a trip to Vancouver Island’s west coast with my wife. Just a long weekend kind of thing that saw us residing in a little B&B near the resort town of Tofino, a stone’s throw from the thundering surf of Long Beach. I remember it all so well. I even have photographs from the weekend. Photographs that were on a film I didn’t have the nerve to get processed until about 5 years after the fact. When I saw them I was struck by how pastoral and lovely everything looked. But, they lied. We were both miserable and we both knew it was ‘over’. We didn’t know what the final crunch would look like, but we knew it was due to happen soon. I can actually still get rather sad writing about it. It had been a very long marriage that had likely run it’s course for us both a decade before the Long Beach weekend. Anyway, no more about that time specifically, but just back to 1992.

In early summer, after the marriage had folded, I began keeping company with the woman who would become my second wife. God is very mischievous in his ‘hard lessons’. So, she and I were besotted with each other and our besottedness was manifested in all the conventionally carnal ways and I thought I had died and gone to Heaven, little realizing my sense of afterlife direction had been compromised profoundly.

Again, not to belabor, she and I began keeping constant company and were like a couple of kids with a new toy. We moved in together the following spring. But, back to 1992.

In September of that year, my mother died. Unexpectedly and ‘expectely’. She’d had a very long bout with chronic alcoholism by that point and that she last until the age of 72 is still amazing to me.

I didn’t really grieve at her death. I tried, but it didn’t work. I didn’t know how to tap into such an emotion as pertained to her.

But, following her death something radical did happen within me. I stopped drawing. I didn’t even notice at first that I was no longer spending evenings in front of the TV with a sketchpad on my lap, turning out items of whimsy. Often cynical, sometimes profane, but nevertheless whimsical cartoons. I was actually kind of good at it. I should have been. I’d been doing it all my life.

I started to draw well before the time I went to school. Coloring books and other such pre-prescribed kiddie art offerings meant nothing to me, but give me a blank piece of paper and a pencil and I would draw. I would draw and draw and draw. Later I moved onto ‘funny’ pictures. My caricatures and so forth were honed and continually refined. I even had some stock characters and I worked out stories around them. I had a little crook whose name was Smudge. He had a dumb friend named Gus. Years earlier Smudge had been blown up by his arch-enemy (whose name I forget), and had been left with a hook, a pegleg and a patch over one eye. But, he carried on with his crookish ways always wanting to ‘get’ the man who’d maimed him.

So Smudge and Gus were later supplanted by cartoon girls (real girls in my dreams) – since I had discovered them by that point – and I found that their tendency to fill out sweaters in a soft and curvy manner added a new dimension to my art. A pleasing one. By the time I was in high school, what I wanted most of all was to go to art school. My parents wouldn’t hear of it. My father was an adult education administrator in Vancouver, and his bailiwick included the Vancouver School of Art. When I made the suggestion, he dismissed it posthaste and referred to those involved in such ‘aimless’ pursuits as “a bunch of beatniks.”
“I know they are, you philistinic fuck, that’s why I want to go.” That was what I thought, but didn’t express.

But, at a later date some of my avocation talents came into play. I actually became an editorial cartoonist at the newspaper at which I worked as a columnist and reporter. I loved it. And, some of my work wasn’t bad by that time. I even had an art show at a local gallery and attracted a sizeable crowd.

And then in 1992, as mentioned, I stopped. I have no idea why, as I also mentioned. It’s just not there any more. I still know how to do it, and my drawing technique hasn’t suffered from lack of practice, but the impulse left.

I’m really sorry about that, and it still confuses me.


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15 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hmmm. I'm not really sure what to say except that I'm sorry.

2:50 PM  
Blogger Tanya Brown said...

Boy, you're a fascinating person! Fun to find out that in addition to your other avocations, you've also been a cartoonist/artist.

My husband had a similar experience to yours, in a way. Shortly after I dumped him in '83, he wasn't able to write. Up until then, he'd been planning on a career as a writer and in fact was night editor of the newspaper where he worked. Then - bammo - several events conspired against him and he had to change gears.

I wonder if there are some parallels with your experiences, as far as loss and trauma. It's as though part of one's personality gets amputated, or more accurately, like the desire/muse valve gets turned off. However, like you, I am neither a psychologist nor a psychiatrist.

Having an interesting life isn't always the easiest thing in the world. I wish you the best.

4:41 PM  
Blogger Hermes said...

I can't say I'm a therapist at all. Sometimes these things happen, don't they? Even if they don't happen to coincide with traumatic or significant events. Whether the loss of the impulse is related to the loss of your mother, I cannot begin to speculate. The question is: do you feel that your life has a hole in it due to the loss of drawing? If not, it probably would have gone by the wayside anyway.

5:21 PM  
Blogger Janice Thomson said...

Perhaps subconsciously you drew to get release from the tension of being around an alcoholic mother. Once she died a great deal of the tension left...and so did the need (not the desire)to draw.

7:29 PM  
Blogger Dumdad said...

Wow, I never knew you were a cartoonist. I love 'em - bring on more!

I've recently taken up cartooning again for my blog. I also stopped for years (perhaps kids?!). I also wanted to go to art college but, guess what, my father wanted me to do Latin and stuff like that.

And so we both became journalists. No complaints.

11:40 PM  
Blogger geewits said...

I think you should take some classes at an art school. That may give you all the answers that you seek as well as fulfilling an early dream. Why not?

12:01 AM  
Blogger Leesa said...

Sad that your drawing stopped after your Mom died. Interesting how things change when we loose those important to us.

6:31 AM  
Blogger Jazz said...

Oooooohhhhhhhhhhhh... Not only are you a wonderful writer, you also draw so well. How I would love to be able to draw. Such a shame you don't do it any longer.

7:26 AM  
Blogger Leslie Hawes said...

Great Cartoons!!
I'm in love with the waitress. :)

I went for years without drawing, but as you said, "I still know how to do it, and my drawing technique hasn’t suffered from lack of practice..."
it doesn't go away.

Writing and drawing are so similar in "use of creative energy" that I have to think you are like the proverbial balloon squeezed on one end, bulging at the other.

Isn't it great that you don't have to if you don't want to? :)

And illustrating your posts would be a kick!

12:32 PM  
Blogger Dr. Deb said...

Trauma leaves holes in us in more ways than we realize. Sometimes what we use to cope, ends up going away when we no longer need it(Ala Janice's response). If the root is still there, maybe it can come out in a different form. Another artistic expressive way, other than drawing.

For me, I used to play music, classical and otherwise throughout my childhood and young adulthood. It's been decades since I've played or felt the urge within me to do so. Not that I miss it or yearn for it. It just isn't there. I like to think that somehow I get nourished in different ways these days.

3:22 PM  
Blogger Halima said...

"Modern life"... Oh, I like that one!

If that creative aspect of yourself was tied to your mother, you could free it... Give your cartooning a re-birth... If you want it back...

Another thought... I have one friend who is most creative when she is in a personally satisfying relationship, and another is creative when she is alone or in some personal angst. How about you?

H.

7:57 PM  
Blogger jmb said...

These are excellent Ian. What a shame the desire went away.

I like Janice's comment but the problem is it was a loss for everyone else as well as you.

But you still paint don't you?

11:28 PM  
Blogger Lulu LaBonne said...

I love your drawings Ian, I too used to draw incessantly I was good (went to art college, work published) and then gradually my fluid lines got all stilted. I haven't lost the urge just that particular talent.

1:16 AM  
Blogger dragonflyfilly said...

i can identify with this. I used to be prolific writer, lots of creative stuff, filled with fantacy...then i "dried up"...but, i have to say, it is still in my imagination...and i have just recently, in the past two weeks or so, been able to put words on paper again.

not sure why your creativity hit this "dry spell"...because quite frankly i am not sure why i fell into my slump...could be your energy was channelled in a different direction...your libido was satisfied??? - maybe...

cheers for now,
pj

12:39 PM  
Blogger Ellee Seymour said...

That was a terrible year for you. You are so lucky to have that gift as well and it will come back to you when you are ready.

1:40 PM  

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