Lesson learned: Don’t draw conclusions until you give it a try

Boston Globe

Beverly Beckham

I tell people all the time that I can’t draw, can’t paint, that I am not an artist. If they are at my house, I show the disbelievers proof: a sketch of a bird I drew years ago during a game of Pictionary.

My friend Anne rescued the sketch from the trash (after everyone stopped laughing), had it framed, and gave it to me one Christmas. It hangs in my office as a reminder to never play Pictionary again. I shake my head every time I look at it.

But looking at it last week, I saw that this disassembled bird is not what I’ve long believed it is: proof that I can’t draw. Because, in fact, I can draw. I paint color into my cheeks and depth into my eyelids every day. Sometimes twice a day. I etch curiosity into my eyebrows. I know how to finesse a contour brush. So, yes, I am an artist.

My framed bird has never been proof that I’m inept. It’s proof that I gave up before I began. That I never tried. That I said I can’t instead of I can, as I often do.

Why has it taken me so long to realize this?

For years, for decades, this bird picture has been trying to tell me not that I’m a failure when it comes to making art; not that I should stick to doing things that I do well. (I’m good with plants, dogs, and small humans). And not that I should never, ever play Pictionary again

It’s been silently screaming at me that I never gave drawing and painting a chance.

So many of us do this, don’t we? Give up when we should buck up. Judge ourselves harshly. We expect to be playing like Billy Joel after six months of piano lessons. We expect to be Annie Leibovitz just because we bought a Nikon. We expect to be fit and toned because we joined a gym four whole weeks ago.

The child I was loved to draw. Loved being handed a new box of Crayola crayons with their perfectly sharpened tops. Loved the feel of them in my hand and the smell of them under my nose. Loved, especially, the magic they could make, how they could turn a sheet of white paper into a house with a winding walk, a village full of people and shops, a farm with pigs and ducks and sheep.

What child doesn’t love to make this magic?

So what happened?

Did someone, when I was 6 or 7 or 8, lean over my drawing and say, “That doesn’t look like a duck.” Or, “That’s not how you draw a house.” Or did I one day look around and start comparing my house and my ducks with the ones my friends drew?

I gave up when I should have gone on. That’s what I know now. I stopped drawing when what I should have done was draw more.

Not wanting to look bad, not wanting to fail, which, thank God lessens with age, has kept me not just from drawing, but from ice skating and dancing and playing tennis and skiing, from trying so many things. Why didn’t I realize that you have to practice to get good at something?

I didn’t have siblings so I didn’t see the effort it takes to learn a sport or play a musical instrument. All I saw was the finished product. I saw Janet Butler skating backward on the pond behind the Boston School for the Deaf, all grace and speed, and not bumping into anyone and I thought, look at her! Isn’t she amazing? I believed she put on her skates and miraculously glided.

I watched my friend Rosemary get straight A’s year after year all through grammar school and I thought, she’s so smart. She knows everything. And she was smart. But she studied, too. I didn’t see this. I didn’t live with her. I didn’t see the effort she put into everything she did.

We seldom see the practice that goes into excellence, the years of getting it wrong and starting over and doing something again and again and again until it’s finally right.

That bird that hangs on my office wall? I could draw it better today. I would Google “How to draw a bird” and I would choose “How to draw a super simple bird.” And because it can’t be any more difficult than applying eyeliner or glueing on eyelashes, I would this time around eventually get it right.