When I was younger, I always had one or two sketchbooks going at any given moment, as well as maybe a yellow legal pad and a spiral notebook or two. I filled them full of little half-baked ideas and recycled imagery, purloined pictures, and tacky commercial garbage. Basically, they were full of shit – occassionally well-drawn or well-written shit – but stuff that had no real personal connection to my identity as a person. It wasn’t until years later that I started to realize that the individual personality of the artist, and his or her incomparable stuggles in life, are the essence of interesting art. That unique experience, the drama that unfolds as we push against the world and it pushes back against us – that is what makes us who we are and gives our work meaning. It is the “x-factor” that grabs people’s attention, forcing them to examine our offerings more deeply, trying to figure out just who the hell we are, just what we are trying to say, and in turn, process their own feelings. The irony here being that the qualities that make us different are often the qualities that make us relatable to others.

Now those early books and pads may have only been amateurish and derivative meanderings, products of a developing mind trying to work things out by imitating whatever caught its fancy, but I scribbled or sketched something every day. Deeply disciplined, self-motivated, with no editor breathing down my neck screaming for copy pages, I made it a practice to write and draw whenever there was opportunity – be it at a restaurant or on a bus. It is the activity that filled the majority of the day’s hours. And if I wasn’t writing or drawing, you can safely bet that I was thinking about what I would be writing or drawing next. If you want to get good at something, there is no big secret: do it repeatedly, over and over, and eventually you will master your trade. That is the priniciple on which I functioned, but there was no clear thought behind the process – it was instinctual: the frustrated, artful blood of generations coursing through fingers that grasped a Uni-ball Micro-roller or a fat, black Pentel.

As I’ve gotten older, and responsibilties have crept in and confounded my play, I’ve lost touch with that carefree exercise of sitting on the bed with a book across my knees, letting the pen flow simply for its own sake. Long gone are the days of drawing for fun, of writing without critical thought. I’ve all but abandoned those purposeless fantasies, those romps down the back alleys of imagination and make-believe. I no longer fill countless journals with pictures and poems. Instead, I jot quick ideas on green library print-outs or wrinkled store receipts, I doodle fast impressions on printer paper and discarded envelopes. I can’t remember the last time I actively put something into a sketchbook … or anything bound or presentable for that matter. No, these days it’s writing-on-the-fly, drawing-on-the-go, dashing off a few lines on my way out the door.

What about you, gentle reader? Do you still journal or sketch or fantasize daily? Do you still let your mind wander off to places unknown, without purpose, without meaning? Do you still keep a corner of your heart free for a face you’ve never met or a hand you’ve never held? Do you still view the world through the eyes of a child, guiltless, blameless, and full of wonder?

I hope that you do. I hope that you do.