I Drew a Lock

And it sucked but I liked it

As the drawing professor walked around class this morning, I was feeling anxious that my work wasn’t good enough. The assignment was easy—only four drawings of a single thing of our choosing. The day we were supposed to bring in the single thing we wanted to draw, I forgot. So when the professor asked us to pull our thing out, I panicked, ran into the hall, and took the lock off my locker. Now, when she went around the room and asked us to talk about why we picked the thing we did, I didn’t panic, because it just so happened that this lock was one I bought on a round the world trip with my future husband some 21 years ago.

Even though the lock was a picked by default, it had a great story going for it, at least.

Sixteen countries in seven months. There were only a handful of things I bought religiously wherever we went. Tile, fabric, stamps, and locks. This particular lock was bought from a street vendor in Hanoi, Vietnam. It’s matte black with the word LOCK on one side and the word VIETIEP on the other. VIETIEP being the brand name that their current website self-describes as “the modernest and biggest company in Vietnam providing locks." So, this morning, I was not feeling anxious about the thing because it’s a quality product purchased on a once-in-a-lifetime trip with the love of my life when I was still young-ish and free and loose on the world.

The anxious I was feeling was about my depiction of the thing.

This is how I feel pretty much all of the time. Anxious. Not good enough. Full of dread and the overwhelming feeling that I am disappointing someone. There are two things I have for sure going for me in middle age. 1) My dog is cute and usually sits somewhere with this tongue hanging slightly out. He almost always smells like toasted jasmine rice and a whiff of his fur can instantly put me in a good mood if I am feeling less than. 2) If I stop chewing my fingernails long enough for them to grow out, they look really great. Seriously. Like hand model great.

In this moment, however, my dog is nowhere in sight, and my beautiful nails (three weeks without chewing) are covered in a graphite dust that makes me look like a coalminer. So these drawings—these poorly done drawings of the lock I bought in Vietnam—are all I have to work with.

I have always been creative. I’m the child of two artists. I’ve taken art classes and participated in fabric arts, design, and photography, but this is the first drawing class I’ve taken since Art I in high school. My mother was so worried about someone marring our artistic abilities that she never encouraged us to take art lessons. I’m not sure what the apprehension was really about. After all, she attended art school, got an art degree, and often taught art herself. She mentored young people in art from the time I was small. She said she didn’t want an art teacher to influencing our style too much. Watching my son develop in art, the influence I saw him draw from teachers leaned more in the technical direction than anything that looked like a real influence on his style. When he was really young, I heard-tell of art teachers actually drawing on his pictures, which is a big Streetman no-no, but other than that, art classes helped him find his way.

But I digress.

Drawing realistically is not really my thing. I’ve never really drawn using an easel before. I'm more adept at drawing tight, specific lines that are better done hunched over a desk or flopped on a couch. I also hate charcoal and paint and prefer to use ink pens as there is more control.

But there I was. Standing up, drawing on an easel, and being asked to use a bunch of tools that I’m not comfortable drawing with. I felt pretty vulnerable, and let’s not forget that I am standing in a studio surrounded mostly by students under 20 who have a lot more going for them than what their nails look like. As the teacher walks around, she talks to each student, pointing out things here and there. When she reaches my easel, she asks about perspective and shapes, then comments, “I wish I had two hours straight to myself to draw.”

My reply. “It is a real privilege to have this time.” Then I started crying.

Now, working in a retail environment (book publishing) within a liberal arts college, what always struck me was how much time the professors always seemed to have. Part of their jobs are having an open door, the free exchange of ideas, and the time to think about things, something I never thought I had as a working professional. My days were usually filled with putting out fires and jumping through hoops, and everyday ended with a to-do stack a mile high of frogs I’d have to eat first thing the next morning. Sitting around talking about life, art, the future, were not necessarily part of the everyday. And professors have a job to do, too. One that pulls them away from spending time thinking about their art and their books and whatever else they always wanted to do with their lives. Just like everyone else on this great floating miracle we call earth.

Art dies if you don’t feed it. It’s difficult to keep the creative spirit alive if you have to constantly work and think about bills, children, relationships, money, and problems. Thankfully, the art universe has been democratized because of the internet. The usual hierarchies of art are not what they used to be, and anyone can have their work out there. (Though that opens up another world of problems in the form of plagiarism, etc., that’s another conversation for another day.) But that doesn’t mean people still don’t have to work for a living. And take care of their children. And keep themselves and their families safe and fed and sheltered. And think about all kinds of things other than how to draw a lock and make it look realistic. But that doesn’t make art any less important.

So there I was, crying in front of the teacher, privileged to be there.

Speaking broadly, education is wasted on the youth. They don’t deserve it. Mostly. There are exceptions, young people who do deserve it, but for the most part I can’t imagine they fully understand how amazing it is. And it is fucking amazing. I know my time is running out, and I don’t want to waste a second of it. I will never take time for granted again. It is a privilege to have the days to come up with ideas and write. To talk about what the concept of time and world literature means. To read all the books by one Nobel-prize winning author and get inside their head for a while. It is a privilege to have two hours to stand there and draw. Even if the drawings suck. Even if I can’t do a lock from the modernest and biggest company in Vietnam justice. But you know what? The thing about doing something—anything—for two hours every day, means in four months I’ll be better at it.

And isn’t that what learning is?