I have always been … creative.

I don’t remember the story very well, because I was very young.  So very young – so feel free to chime in, mom! – that this story has been told to me instead of remembering it personally.

The long and short of it is, when I was but a wee baby, I got ahold of the cinnamon from the spice cupboard and poured it out onto the floor.  My mother was furious.  I was undaunted.  I told her I was using the cinnamon to make “shadows” on the floor.

The thing that strikes me is even then, I was using unique medium – whatever I could get my hands on – to create art for no purpose.  When do we lose the urge to create, for fun?  When do we start believing that art isn’t worth it because it’s messy? 

When I was in college, for my final project for Performance Art class, I spread a tarp on the ground outside and used my bare feet and hands and (sorry, mom – yet again) eggs and potatoes from the fridge and condiment packets stolen from the dining hall to make a Jackson Pollock-style splatter art.  Part dance, part painting, part social commentary, but all of it was for the little kid in me who just wanted to play with her food.

I got an A in that class.
And the cinnamon shadows story lives on.