“Chasing The Sun” by Gabrielle b. McLean private collection
I’ve been a professional artist since I was 22 years old.
I was in college at the time, studying something completely unrelated to art, when a friend of mine saw my stylized animal drawings and said I could make some extra money painting them on the walls of kids’ rooms.
Even though I already had a part-time job, I was really interested, so he introduced me to a man who was already painting on kids’ walls. His name was Roger, and he gave me tons of advice. I left the meeting totally inspired.
Three days later, he called to offer me a job.
I was shocked.
Unbeknownst to Roger, I had prepared for the meeting by redrawing three of my characters on illustration board and coloring them using supplies I’d bought specifically for that purpose.
Until then, I hadn’t even owned a paintbrush, much less any paint.
I told him as much, and he said something to me I will never forget.
He said, “If you can draw, you can paint.”
And after climbing the near-vertical learning curve that took me from pencils to paint, I discovered he was right.
A few years later, I went out on my own, and I’ve since had the pleasure of working for people like Eddie Murphy and Paul Reiser.
I’ve done work for Pottery Barn Kids.
And yet, as a kid, I never wanted to be an artist.
When I was little, I would sit in my room and draw for hours. For years, all I drew were horses. Then, when I was about 11, I got into drawing Garfield and all his friends. And when I got to high school, I got obsessed with Duran Duran and would spend many afternoons drawing each of their faces.
And to be honest, after all this, I got pretty good.
So it’s not all that surprising that people would tell me I was an artist. They would say it directly, or they would say something like,
“I wish I was an artist.”
And while I really loved the attention, I was also deeply confused by their comments.
I didn’t think I was any different from the people who couldn’t draw. I just DID draw, and they did NOT draw.
But, I reasoned, if they did draw, for hours and hours, they would be artists too.
It’s interesting to me now that I chose to believe that if they weren’t artists, then I must not be an artist, instead of the other way around. I think I just wanted to fit in and be like everyone else.
Then there was the fact that all I’d ever heard about artists was that they were poor and unhappy. Or crazy.
None of that interested me in the slightest.
So how did I explain the fact that I spent tons of hours drawing?
I’m not sure. But I can say that, in my mind, I wasn’t being creative. It would be years before I understood that drawing was doing something else for me, too.
Martha Beck, a sociologist and author of Beyond Anxiety, has said,
“Anxiety kills creativity.”
This makes so much sense to me.
Because in hindsight, I was an anxious kid in some ways.
What I mean is that my drawing all the time wasn’t primarily about expressing myself. It was my way of trying to control what was, in some ways, a very chaotic childhood.
It was a really beautiful childhood:
There were horses and chickens,
open spaces and white winters,
and there was also addiction, illness, and death.
And this was in the ’80s, a time when most people, my family in particular, didn’t understand the value of talking things through.
So I drew.
The thing is, drawing actually was a creative act. But that didn't occur to me. I only recognized that it was the best way I knew to lower my anxiety. And it would be even more years before I understood that being creative is so much more than knowing how to draw.
Going back to Martha Beck, I do agree that, on one level, anxiety kills creativity.
I also think shame, pain, confusion, fear, and sadness can also subdue our creative nature.
But I deeply believe that we are born with the capacity to be creative, as well as a primal urge to be so, even if our creativity has been squashed at the surface.
I have gone from that little girl who didn’t want to be an artist, to a young professional painter who didn’t want to call herself an artist, to a fully-fledged woman who not only calls herself an artist but also fully embraces her creative nature in all areas of her life.
And getting to know myself was, and continues to be, one of the most important ways I cultivate my creative nature.
For example, I’ve noticed that I can learn a lot about myself when I feel anxious.
I learned this lesson through trial and error, tons of resistance, a fair amount of really good therapy as a young adult, and a lot of study and experience in the fields of psychology, science, and spirituality.
Through all of this, I have learned to get curious about my anxiety.
Which I still get.
But now I’m usually able to distinguish between stress, anxiety, and excitement.
I am constantly tweaking my life to reduce the chronic stress that drains my energy, while simultaneously cultivating the excitement that makes me feel alive.
And I've come to realize that these are two very different things. I want less stress and more serenity, but I don't want so much comfort and predictability that I become bored or apathetic.
Because the truth is, excitement and anxiety often go hand in hand. Trying something new, taking a chance, or stepping into the unknown can be exhilarating and terrifying at the same time.
And I don't want to give up one just to avoid the other.
It's one of the reasons I love calling myself an artist, because now I feel like I have permission to try new things, which continually feeds my creative nature. Having said that, despite all my years as a professional artist, trying new things is, by its nature, scary and therefore a little bit anxiety-producing.
It's a delicate balance, and one that, for me, requires fairly consistent attention.
And I get whacked off balance on a regular basis.
But I also regain my balance fairly quickly.
And at this point, the reward for dancing with the anxiety that comes with embracing the unknown is the joy I feel on a daily basis, the comfort I feel living in my own skin, and the enthusiasm I have for living my life.
I wouldn’t trade it for the world.