As a young girl, I was a creative thinker and writer. My third grade teacher at Taft Primary Elementary assigned my friend Heidi and I as class storytellers. Every week we were challenged to create a new story (or add to an existing story) through words crafted with D’Nealian penmanship and our own hand-illustrations. We were given big pieces of Pepto-Bismol-Pink card stock and those fat-lead art pencils. Lucky for me, my desk was close to the pencil sharpener, as I liked my handwriting to be neat and tidy and because I didn’t really think of myself as an artist so much, there was a lot of erasing when it came to my illustrations.
At home, life itself was creative. My parents made our home – wherever it was in the country - comfy/cozy and filled with handmade things. We didn’t always have very much money, but it wasn’t obvious to my sisters and I. Our home was filled with color and light and tactile items, made with love and care. My mom has enjoyed the fiber art of crocheting for as long as I can remember. She continues to handcraft warm and colorful afghans for new babies, graduates, and neighbors. When we were younger, she enjoyed escaping to the ceramics studio, pouring her heart into the molds and making things both small and large for our home. Before it burned down when I was 12 years old, our living room was inhabited by two large ceramic lamps of fisherman on a ship. Captain Jack and First Mate Robert lit our lives and told stories of their own with their brown, leathery skin and sea-whipped hair. When we lived in Michigan, our garden was filled with a gorgeous array of colors. We spent time weeding and hoeing, hiding in cornstalks as the season simmered from hot August into languid September.
Throughout elementary, high school and college, my creative outlet was my writing. I never had a particularly awesome penchant for anything grammatically correct, and although an almost straight A student, was always haunted with interesting verbiage but terrible mechanics. My senior English teacher scribbled in angry red pen “Great writing, Jenni, but your grammar needs attention!” As an English major in college, I spent all of my time theorizing, analyzing, and describing critically and creatively in my writing. However, on a memorable occasion, what would have been A++ work (my dear friend and professor Roseanne was the granter of the “A++”), was granted a mere B, because of mechanics. I like to think my unique approach to language, communication, and writing is a part of my personality. I mean I was obviously doing something right, as I did complete my undergraduate work as a Magna cum laude, English Honor’s Society member. I thought I’d go onto graduate school, obtain a PhD and go onto live a life in academia, teaching students, just like me, who loved to learn and share and be inspired by thoughtful words, my lifelong.
If I had to do it all over again, I would have
By Jenn Ryan
Making a Difference
One Piece of
Art at a Time
Art as Therapy