I have always loved to draw. I do not remember a time when I didn't.
All through my childhood, I spent hours and hours and hours bent over a pieces of paper, completely engrossed with the act of drawing. I drew on discarded office paper, stacks of it, and in the backs of school notebooks, in the margins of books, anything I could lay my hands on. It was my great joy.
By the time I reached art school, drawing was firmly entrenched as a part of my identity, who I was and how I saw myself. I was the girl who could draw. I loved drawing in art school. My first classes in studio life drawing were a revelation and I loved loved loved everything about it. I loved the hot studio and the sleepy models, I loved the horses we sat on and the fresh pads of paper. I even loved sharpening the pencils! Any one that has sharpened pencils by hand to a fine point will understand, its an act of extreme patience. I just adored everything about it.
But by the time I left art school, I had little confidence that I could support myself with this skill. Somehow, I had lost this thing that had been a huge and important part of my life. I put drawing aside.
I went to work instead. I found myself, not unlike so many others, in the film business, and I worked as a Set Decorator for nearly 30 years. People who work in film will tell you, the job sucks up all of your time and your energy, physical and mental. While I worked in film, in all those years I did not do more then a few drawings. I would laugh and say "I'm saving it for my retirement", never thinking that day would come.
Well, it did, sooner than I expected. Suddenly, with time on my hands, I thought about making art again, but I still couldn't comprehend what role drawing would take. Aren't drawings meant to be preparatory to more important works? I assumed I needed to Paint. What a waste of an idea, as I am a rubbish painter. So, I struggled with poor results, until one day, while attended a show at The Rooms in Newfoundland, I saw the work of Susan Wood and I was blown away. She did drawings! In her artist statement, she said that as a young artist, she tried painting but realized she was better at drawing, so she stuck with that. I felt suddenly that I had been given permission to do the same, a revelation.
So I approached drawing with the same discipline and rigour that people associate with painting, taking drawing out of the realm of preparatory work into that of polished, finished artwork in its own right.
And now, I love drawing again.