What did you draw today?

"What do you do all day?" is a question I used to find offensive.  As a single parent, full time restaurant/office worker, sculptor and homeowner of an unfinished house, I usually wanted to snap "WTF!  Here's what I didn't do today:  read, nap, play, daydream, watch a movie, take a walk, go to the beach.  What I did do:  cut grass, plant trees, weed, scrape paint, repair, rebuild, make clay, build armatures, prepare terracottas for firing, load kiln, do laundry, make lunch, wash dishes, clean kitchen and then go to work."  My sleep cycle was determined by how late I got home from work and how early the kids woke up:  5 hours was usual.

Waiting

Now I'm old.  The  kids I was running around after are all grown up.  I can go to sleep when I want to and wake up when I want to.  The house that still isn't finished is at least paid off.   The housework, yard work, all that - still the same amount of work and after thirty years of it, should look way better than this.  I'm still playing my private game of Beat the Clock against myself which I both always win and always lose.  But the question "what did you do today" is still just as inapplicable and meaningless.  A more sensible question for me would really be, "what did you draw today?" And that would explain it all.  Everything starts with a drawing.  If I'm in the planning stage of anything, it begins with a thumbnail sketch.  If its a halfway good idea at all, at least a post-it size diagram comes next.  Then the big paper comes out, the leads get sharpened and the big eraser is handy.  Or I may be already deep in drawings, getting ready to start the next big project.  On the other hand, if I didn't draw at all, and there's not a single drawing or drawing materials in sight, you'd know I've just had surgery or I'm dealing with some kind of catastrophe - basement flooded, stomach flu, the Holidays.

Ask not, for whom the bell tolls.  Ask, what did you draw today?

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