I’ve been an artist and writer since I was six years old. I still have my sketches and “Stories That Come Alive” folder from first grade filled with childhood adventures infused with fantasy. When time came to go off to college these two traits served me well, until they didn’t. On day one I was promised by the Dean of the college that I would study at London’s Royal Academy of Arts. Next I was granted full credit for English 101 directly from the Chair of the English Department. My 45 minute essay struck a chord with my English professor who marched me into the Chair’s office the next morning. Believing they caught on to my ruse I waited silently for my sentence. Would I be expelled for poking fun at my fossilized professor or praised for my honest prose? They appreciated my style, candor, and willingness to use one word sentences as pauses when it was time to give the reader a breath. I exhaled slowly taking in the victory. The bell rang. It was time for Drawing 101. I glanced down at my carbon copied class schedule card and read the name, it was unique. Family etymology derives this name from Latin, meaning warlike. What spiritual warfare he’d inflict.
Bloodthirsty, with a hint of warmongering in his tone, the thinly bearded, four-eyed specter lurched over. He climbed up shakily on top of my desk, sat down to one side and crossed his legs Indian style leaning in just inches from the peachy fuzz on my left ear weakly whispering: “Mr. Vinson, if you do not start proving your talents I will be forced to report your deceitful plagiarism to the Dean of Students facing immediate expulsion from the college.” He gently rubbed his grisly, bristle brush goatee. His accusal left me frozen in awe creating a massive mental block like none I’d ever faced before.
“I’d wager that the portfolio you shared with me during summer past was not your own.” I swear for a millisecond I caught a smirk of satisfaction on his pock-marked, withered face as his forked tongue rapidly retracted back into his narrow slit of a mouth. He was mistaken, but his attack left me hollow, shaken. No one had ever accused me of imaginative malice, but I hadn’t learned how to believe in myself. Up to that point I was always seeking external validation. When he revoked his trust in me my spirit was crushed, so lost that I forgot how to draw altogether. My spark was gone.
Dad said I could always hustle and seal the deal. He instilled in me the business side of creativity. Pursuing art and design was typically met by most parents as pipe dreams. However, my parents not only encouraged me, they believed in me. Every sketch and brushstroke was secretly meant to garner their attention. I didn’t learn how to believe in myself without validation from others until I was fifty years old, and thank God for that! He is so good for one who believes.
When I was five years old I was already a skilled pathological liar. I could bend my reality in my favor whether I was lying to cover up me stealing another kid’s toy or manipulating mom to buy me one at the hardware store’s attic that was filled with the latest Star Wars toys. The line I repeated most often was: “but mom, there’s only one left.” Most of the time I got my way. 1978–1983 I acquired nearly every Star Wars gem. If I had only known to keep them in mint condition in the box I could have retired rather wealthy twenty years ago. Oh well.
Since I was twelve I began selling watercolors on cold-pressed Arches paper and hyper-detailed, airbrushed T-shirts for $100 a pop. During high school I won local and state art awards for my efforts. I garnered by first national recognition for the 240 caricature senior class T-shirt at the “T-shirt Art Event of the Century” in Austin, Texas. It’s a shirt I used to promote many more caricature commissions of local tennis and swim teams, famous folks, and families.
When I was sixteen I was hired to illustrate multiple amusement park rides for the creative genius behind FreeFall, Jerry Barber. He and I even coined the name of the primary ride, the Amphibian Air Car, that went into production the following year in 1989. I aced my AP Art concentration my senior year in 1990 with hopes to continue my artistic pursuits at Winthrop College in the fall.
During the summer after high school graduation I met with a Winthrop College drawing professor. He was subtly confident in my mastery of so many media styles from my AP Art portfolio plus all of my commissioned freelance work. I also shared my photography that I’d been honing my passion for since elementary school alongside my pixel paintings rendered on Apple computers with crude digital tools.
When I arrived at Winthrop little did I know it would be that same drawing professor reducing me to a state I can only describe as parallel to my initial arrival as an infant, a broken preemie born a month early with more problems than all the other babies born that day. My arrival into this world as Job, an absolute underdog, from day one fighting my way out of the pin of mediocrity.
Multiple times nearly reaching the top rung of the ladder then cast back down I went every time reduced to ash. My internal phoenix grew all the brighter, stronger with each failure. After half a century I was finally granted the insight and second sight in order to give the world a sudden shake trying to wake them up from the seductresses of dark tech. These wicked sirens are out for sailor’s blood at all costs. Now back to the troll.
His name was synonymous with the warlike martyr. I was his next victim, another martyr, another witch to burn at the stake. Swiftly forsaken. His frail nature a mockery of his psychological stature. Saucer eyes reminded me of the troll under the bridge, but this fiend was living, breathing proof, not a children’s story. Amidst this horrific nightmare he preyed on me gnawing at my passion planting a black seed consuming every double helix, every neuron, and every creative vibration.
Bloodthirsty, with a hint of warmongering in his tone, the thinly bearded, four-eyed specter lurched over. He climbed up shakily on top of my desk, sat down to one side and crossed his legs Indian style leaning in just inches from the peachy fuzz on my left ear weakly whispering: “Mr. Vinson, if you do not start proving your talents I will be forced to report your deceitful plagiarism to the Dean of Students facing immediate expulsion from the college.” He gently rubbed his grisly goatee. His accusal left me frozen in awe creating a massive mental block like none I’d ever faced before.
He continued his berated barrage, “I’d wager that the portfolio you shared with me during summer past was not your own.” I swear for a millisecond I caught a smirk of satisfaction on his pock-marked, withered face as his forked tongue rapidly retracted back into his narrow slit of a mouth. He was mistaken, but his attack left me hollow, shaken.
No one had ever accused me of imaginative malice, but I hadn’t learned how to believe in myself. Up to that point I was always seeking external validation. When he revoked his trust in me my spirit was crushed, so lost that I forgot how to draw altogether. My spark was gone.
Emptied by an impish ghoul draining my every talent, every mastered tool. Reverse psychology never worked on me. I was praised since day one, but never learned how to handle anyone, any force, that might doubt me. So I had to quit before I even got started. I wasn’t ready, wasn’t prepared to not only survive, but thrive in the wake of psychological warfare. The only path to wisdom is through failure.
Two and half weeks passed. It was time to go home. I had lost over twenty pounds, couldn’t sleep a wink or keep food down. Wrecked. 3D Design class was even worse than the warmonger’s stare down. The next morning I tossed everything into my Army surplus bag and headed to my car. I fumbled with the keys, but eventually drove away with no intention to ever return. Ever. Yet here I am returning to the scene of the crime, quite amused, seeking clues as to why I was singled out. Why all the doubt? He proved to me that I must not seek approval from others.
I must believe in myself at all costs. So, thank you Mister Monger. Now I understand why you forced my hand. I heard you passed away, sir. May you rest in peace. In hindsight all is clear. Sometimes we must step back, disappear, if for just awhile in order to refuel. Adaptation is innate, but we must remember that it takes us tweaking our own cosmic code in order to survive the next wave. The answer is to attend to not what is seen, but what is unseen to our naked eyes.
“We must focus on what is unseen, our inner iceberg just below the surface. That’s where our deepest vibrations ebb and flow in the arctic currents.”