Fragment by Fragment • by Lesley Riley

When I was say, 5, (and 10 and 15), I wanted to be an artist when I grew up. Only problem was, I didn’t know how to be one. Back in the dark ages (‘50s and ‘60s), I thought being an artist meant having the natural ability to draw realistically. I thought it was something you were born with, like long legs or blonde hair.

Early Exposures to Art
My early exposure to art (and the origin of many of my false beliefs) were the National Gallery of Art; my 4th grade friend, Patty Donohue, a gifted “natural” artist who could draw anything you asked her to; and my once-a-week after-school art class with Miss Pavlovich. Even now, the smell of art gum erasers and turpentine sends me right back into that poorly lit multi-purpose room at Ursuline Academy where we drew still life set-ups and I disappointingly compared my smudged charcoal drawings to Patty’s masterpieces.

Fast-forward to my senior year at Immaculata High School. I had waited three years for the chance to take art again and ended up having to beg the principal to switch my pre-assigned elective from Eastern Studies to Art. This time I sat next to another natural-born talent, Diane Kuzio. I still couldn’t draw, but I had found other ways of expressing myself. By the age of 17 I was a master at collage and a wiz at composition and layout. I still couldn’t draw but boy could I compose pages full of photos and text — a skill I discovered as yearbook editor, class of 1970. (The yearbook fell under the jurisdiction of the journalism department, and it wasn’t until just now as I am writing this that I realize that a yearbook is as much art as it is journalism.)

Learning How to Be an Artist
In my twenties I turned to crafts, too scared to venture into the “Art World” where I figured I was doomed to failure without drawing skills. It was then that I discovered by love of fabric and quilting. But darned if I didn’t start to feel inadequate again when I discovered art quilting. It wasn’t drawing skills this time; it was something else, an artistic aesthetic that their work exhibited. Again I poured through books, searching for clues. I came across the phrase, “learn to see like an artist.” Call me naïve, but I began to think “real” artists actually saw the world differently. Now where was I going to learn how to do that?

And so began my decade’s long quest to understand the mystery, the meaning, the motivation, and the mastery of this thing we call art. A child of the ‘50s, I had always been able to find the answers I needed in books. I have probably read (and am still reading) every book ever published on art and creativity. I learned so many, many things but I still could not learn how to be an artist.

The Day of Instant Illumination
And then one day, after years of frustration, years of unsatisfying attempts to unlock the mystery, years of design classes and yes, even more lessons in drawing and painting, I looked in one more place. Well actually, I didn’t look. My art finally burst. It poured straight from my heart and through my hands. The Anaïs Nin quote that I had been carrying around in my head for so long took on a whole new meaning, “And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” Suddenly it ALL made sense. One does not learn to become an artist through books, through classes, through watching others work. You become an artist by doing, by creating what is in your heart.

“There are very few human beings who receive the truth, complete and staggering, by instant illumination. Most of them acquire it fragment by fragment, on a small scale, by successive developments, cellularly, like a laborious mosaic.” — Anaïs Nin

While I can mark my day of instant illumination, the day art saved me, I know that Nin is right. Is it a coincidence or cosmic fate that the name I gave to the art that spilled out of me that frozen, powerless day (January 4, 1999) was Fragments? All that I know for sure is that like Dorothy, I needed to follow my own yellow brick road to discover that I had the power within me all along.

To learn more about Lesley Riley, visit lesleyriley.com.

Comments

[Ellen]

Lesley,
I am so happy your pressed on and found your ruby red slippers and a way to express the beauty in your soul~ Life give us vision to express fragments of our lives, into our art. Time, work and allowing the voice of one's soul to be heard~
Thank you for sharing!