Time Capsule

"Ribbit", 1986, My Junior Year of High School

"Rawr", 1986

"Ruff", 1986

This doodling habit of mine has been picking at my brain since I wrote about it in yesterday's blog article, so I started doing some digging into my past. As I tore closets and the garage apart, I found forgotten boxes full of a dozen sketch books, art pencils, paints, post-it notes, highlighters, and a whole lot of various junk I'm saving for God knows what reason. I can't even believe most of this stuff has made it through twenty-six years of traveling all over the place! I sat in the floor and looked through all of my sketch books, most of which weren't even half full (...which tells me I draw some, lose the book, buy a new one and start over). The images on the pages were like looking at a time capsule filled with bits of flotsam from my life.

There were sketches done when I was a new bride, and when things started to go wrong, various pieces of things that made me smile or merely showed a snap shot of what was going on at the time. This artistic layer is almost like a second skin that I really was completely oblivious to. I mean, I knew I enjoyed drawing, I just didn't know that I do it all the time...like breathing.

"Wedded Bliss", 1987, The Year I Got Married

"The New Bride", Drawn in 1991 from a wedding photo

What does it mean? What does this say about me? I could philosophize about each penciled choice, dissecting it down to my most basic feelings and thoughts that it might represent, but where's the fun in that? I'd much rather simply post them and allow you to draw your own conclusions, or better yet, let them speak to something inside of YOU.

"Bleed for Love", 1989

"Lost", 1991

To my mind, that's what art is supposed to be...a means of tapping into each individual who takes it in and allows them to do whatever he or she wishes by way of internalizing meaning. As I gave myself time to consider each picture I'd drawn, I'm sure the meaning they have for me now is not the same as what was intended when I first penned them to a page. Many years of life experience separates me from the moment when they were new, and with that experience comes a new perspective, as well as an opening up of a lens that was much more narrow. Anyway, I hope you will find among my drawings something compelling, perhaps inspiring for your own life. 

Always,
A.

"Ed's Iris", 1996

"A Powerful Man", Drawn in 1997 from a photo taken in 1987

"Candid Class", 2001, My First Year of Teaching

"After Recess", 2001

"For the Love of Books", 2001

"A World That Makes No Sense", 2004, The Year My Husband Was in Korea

"The Place I Long to Go", 2004

"The Lens You Know", 2006

"The Skin You're In", 2010, Right After I'd Completed My Master's Degree

Note: All of these pieces are my own artwork, though the first three were drawn from cartoon photos I'd found elsewhere. Copyright @ amymschaefer.com, 2015. All rights reserved.