In high school art
class, I was taught the definition of perspective:
“Two
seemingly parallel lines meet at a vanishing point on the horizon.”
And, to get a more
tactile lesson in that definition, my art teacher had us students draw our high
school hallway, capturing that perspective.
So, there we were, a
bunch of ninth and tenth graders, perched at various points of the hallway, our
18 X 24- inch sheets of paper taped to gigantic drawing boards that could be used
to bludgeon someone.
And, from there, with
our pencils and rulers, we endeavored to capture that illusive perspective
line. No easy feat. I learned an art class lesson very early; draw LIGHTLY. It
was hard to thoroughly obliterate a mistake of a dark line, even with the
thickest of pink gum erasers.
Furthermore, the
challenge of capturing perspective’s line, on the first attempt, was usually
incorrect, meaning, what was supposed to resemble the flow of a long hallway,
quickly became the row of lockers colliding into the opposite wall.
Two seemingly parallels
lines meeting at a vanishing point on the horizon?
Hardly.
It was more like you’re
never going to be able to open your locker again.
For the few weeks we
students were doing our artsy sit-in, probably, while being fire/safety hazards.
And, I have found myself learning a few lessons, beyond the drawing of a
hallway, ever since.
The
Seemingly Never-ending Row of Lockers:
They seemed to stretch
for miles.
With my trusty-dusty
ruler, I had to carve out several of these sliced buggers while, again, making
sure that they, somehow, met at a vanishing point on the infernal horizon.
These drawn slivers of locker had to be spaced accurately. You couldn’t just have
a three-inch block of locker next to a two- millimeter slice. They had to
TAPER!
TAPER!
As I was lightly
drawing with my ruler and pencil, I kept thinking about the school lockers. How
many instances of bullying, getting shoved into them and getting sexually
harassed near them have occurred, since the dawn of high school time? I know I
experienced a little of my own hashtag Me Too back in the day.
As I was sitting in the
exact same spot on the hallway floor, day after day, I started realizing how
much lockers were a metaphor for life.
Each locker was a
contained space. Each locker held something: unique, personal expressions of
its master. An athletic calendar of upcoming events, a photo of a boyfriend or
girlfriend tacked on the inside of the door, books, lettermen’s jackets, gym
clothes, maybe an unwieldly instrument like a trombone for band practice. Each
locker was a representation of a life, positioned next to another locker,
representing another life.
And so on, and so on…
But, as I was vexed
with the task of drawing locker slice, after locker slice, it also occurred to
me how much lockers represent something more universal and philosophical.
Uncertainty? Monotony?
Tediousness?
Life going on,
regardless? Yay.
Who, in their
adolescent mind, really thinks about boredom, the disappointment, the loss,
beyond that of high school experiences? It can be further challenging as the “adults”
force feed teenagers glimmering promises of pristine futures, limitless
achievements, happily ever after, perhaps?
I know, I know, I know.
You can’t break it to ‘em just what life actually is. Each person needs to find
out for himself/herself.
These lockers just
captivated my attention, way back when. If you focus on something for long periods
of time, other thoughts show up.
And, no matter what age
or stage we find ourselves in, past high school, there is still that row of
clustered sliver blocks, lockers, representing us, veering toward some point,
which, one can argue, is our mortality.
Decorate your locker
with that!
The Floor:
You know the scene in the
1991 film, “Terminator 2?” There’s just endless road, lurching forward,
ominously predicting how cyborgs were going to kill all of humanity? Well,
that’s how I viewed the hallway floor as I went about my art project back in
the day. It’s was smooth, polished green, and it seemed to keep going, always
with the threat of tripping you up.
It appeared to be more
menacing than the lineup of endless lockers. After all, there was no
personalization here. To quote the band, REM’s lyric, just “three miles of bad
road.”
Fantastic. Higher
education.
I couldn’t quite get a
handle on the hallway floor, this buffed, jade-green surface, for which many a
times, I’d tripped and fallen, splat, onto it. Being uncoordinated didn’t help;
slippery Minnesota winters, trudging in pools of melted ice further also created
obstacle courses, en route to the lockers and classrooms.
But, overall, I suppose
what got my attention was how the floor represented the path, life’s path. It
just stretched before us, yes, tripping us up from time to time. There would be
falls; there would be injuries. Graduating from high school would not- and could
not change that.
So, hit the ground
running, hit the polished hallway floor running, hit whatever pathway we
encounter running, sooner or later, well, life happens.
Breast cancer, for me
personally, was just one bit of evidence to support that theory. Although, yes,
I was always uneasy with my breasts, no one ever told me, as a young person,
that this experience would be part of my hallway floor, my path, the ongoing
stretch of life set before me.
Sometimes, disease,
illness, loss and death are the floors we must walk on.
Exit Sign:
As that high school
student, drawing the hallway, my vantage point had an Exit sign within my sight
line. Nothing extraordinary about it. You’ve seen one Exit Sign, you’ve seen
them all.
It was positioned to my
left, so, I proceeded to draw it in the top left corner of my paper. A simple,
slightly rectangular box, with “Exit” written in it. Not much to write home
about.
I thought my little
sign was adorable. It made a statement. And it wasn’t just, “Go! Get out of
here!”
No, rather, it was,
“This is the way out.” Simple, less violent, no teenage stampeding, crushing
bodies trying to escape the hell of high school.
I was enduring high
school. Most of us do. It’s a time fraught with angst, bullying, rejection,
awkwardness and lonely insecurity. So, naturally, we’d probably do anything we
could to escape that.
All things are subject
to change. It’s a universal truth, Inevitably, life does change, some way,
somehow. Signposts, signaling an Exit here or there, prompt us to acknowledge
and remember we will move on a have different experiences.
For me, personally, high
school would end and an era of eating disorders, in their full expression,
would begin throughout college into my young adulthood. And then other
transitions arrived: marriage, my writing career, loss of one parent,
caregiving to another… and cancer.
No one could prep me
with a big enough Exit Sign for THAT one.
Yet, here I am,
supposedly, in Survivorship mode, navigating the uncertain reality of what the
ultimate Exit may mean. Yes, I think about how I once so innocently drew that
little sign on the top left side of my paper, never entertaining how much
thought I’d give it later.
But eventually, you and
I do give our personal Exit Signs a lot of thought, don’t we? Something ends,
something “phases out.”
And we need to start
over again.
Vanishing Point
on the Horizon:
Back during that high
school art project, as we sat at the end of the long hallway, there was the
destination apex, where, supposedly, our two seemingly, parallel lines met at a
vanishing point on the horizon.
When it came to the
literal high school hallway I drew, that was represented by a large window at
the end of the smoothly polished jade-green floor.
A window- well, there’s
a metaphor, huh? Let’s look outside. What’s beyond it? What does the world look
like, from here?
The trick, in drawing
the beast, was that, on sunny mornings, blinding sunlight would stream through.
You had to be careful, looking directly at it. No one here was a wise Native
American elder, practicing the ritual of staring at the sun until his/her
retinas burned out, while simultaneously, achieving an enlightened vision.
Hardly. Remember, we’re
a bunch of teenagers. One needs to lower that expectation a bit.
Still, as I averted my
eyes, trying to capture the window, noting how the entire end of the hallway
was Madonna’s white-hot set in the “Lucky Star” video, I couldn’t avoid one
simple truth:
There is more.
Perspective.
We don’t always see
everything when we think we should see it. That, I guess, is what hindsight is
for. When you and I are finally mature, wise, compassionate enough to handle
the deeper truth in life, then, the vision revelation often comes…
“Oh, so that’s
what that was.”
If we try to force
things, before we’re ready, we can burn ourselves out. Our retinas may be
intact, but something else can be destroyed, if not seriously damaged.
We’re not ready for
“it” yet.
Hopefully, we will be
someday. But today- now- is not that day.
And, until we are, we
need to keep learning the lessons our spirits were assigned, our cosmic
homework.
We don’t get finished,
actualized, enlightened, all, in one fell swoop. It’s a series of smaller
vanishing points on the horizon, smaller, “Oh, so that’s what that was”
revelations.
One after the other.
“Draw what
you see, not what you know:”
This quote was uttered daily
by my high school art teacher and it sticks with me, to this day.
In the drawing context,
the point she was trying to hammer home with us was to not get ahead of
ourselves. Yes, we may know there’s an ear or a flower in the still life’s
vase, but are we actively experiencing drawing the shape and the line of
what is before us?
No, we, instead, want
to go full steam ahead and draw what we believe is that ear or flower. We’re
not in the moment, experiencing it with our pencil. We are assuming instead.
Assumption rarely leads to great art.
Going beyond art class,
my teacher’s wisdom is the gentle reminder to experience what I’m going
through, not make assumptions about what I may or may not encounter. I have yet
to master this skill; I can be a bit of a control freak, wanting answers.
Cancer was a doozy for
me, therefore, in that department. I don’t know, I REALLY don’t know, what the
future will look like. Sometimes, I’m uncertain about my present.
And the past? Well,
I’ve had to face it and challenge myself with what truly happened.
That’s more painful than just assuming the tale I’d like to believe.
So, yes, I’m currently
in a state of challenging the past, present and the future. Although I’d like
the tidy, fairytale, “happily ever after,” I have to face and live “what IS.”
I need to draw WHAT I
SEE, AND NOT WHAT I KNOW.
And, the irony in doing
so is this: I discover, learn and know more from practicing the “what IS.”
Truth over story.
Eventually, when you and
I face what we see, we, inevitably, stumble upon something. Some personal
revelation. Some lesson.
I’ve read some
affirmation statements, encouraging us to rejoice, to make the best of things
when we find ourselves stuck in a hallway, known as our life circumstances.
Don’t worry. Soon, a
door will open and ta-dah. Chin up. That kind of thing.
I don’t know how
realistic that advice is. Some hallways are quite brutal. Waiting is the
equivalent to agony.
Perspective:
“two seemingly parallel lines meet at a vanishing
point on the horizon:”
Not all of us draw our
high school hallways, trying to get the accurate look of 3-D dimensions from
lockers, doors and floors.
But ALL of us can
achieve perspective. What do the issues, events, people and places mean to us?
What vanishes from
prominence? What emerges as predominant?
No two perspectives are
exactly alike. They are fingerprints; they are snowflakes.
A challenge, perhaps,
is to recognize that, to find meaning from it. To face what intersects, what
disappears and what remains visible.
Perspective. More than
just an artistic term.
Copyright © 2022 by
Sheryle Cruse
