I Begin at My Drawing Table
I needed to set pencil to paper. I have been a cartoonist since I was a child. I made my living for many years as a commercial artist. But I hadn’t been drawing. I had started a couple of projects, but just couldn’t stay interested. It had been years, decades really, since I could get much of anywhere on a cartooning project. I’d get two or three strips in, then just kind of let it go.
Then, my son Nathaniel suggested I “do something” with the stories I have told him for years about my life as a child, growing up during the late middle part of the 20th century in the panhandle of Texas, mostly in the cities of Amarillo, Pampa, and Canyon. Even though I thought they were kind of typical, he found my stories fascinating. So maybe, I thought, I could just start in and see where it took me. And since I am a cartoonist, I would tell them as a series of comic pages. So, I set pencil to paper. The first three pages were simple. I didn’t want to set myself up to be overwhelmed or lose interest by setting the bar too high at first. I just needed to get moving and keep moving on a creative project, a comic strip, or book, or… not sure what it is actually.
As I have gotten further into the story I have begun to see that my name for the project, “The Unified Theory of Mister Pitts” was even more appropriate than I had at first thought. As I remember these moments in my life and try to illustrate them, I am seeing how everything is interconnected, especially, in my experience, how moments of kindness can be formative, and transformative.
One of my heroes, Fred Rogers, when he would be speaking in public, accepting an award for instance, would ask the audience to be silent for ten seconds, and to think of all those people in their lives who have “loved them into being”, who cared for them, and who wanted what was best for them. In drawing these memories, I am remembering so many people who were kind to me, who loved me into being.
This is a powerful thing to remember. This project is waking me up, opening me up emotionally, and making me so grateful for my life and the people who have loved me into being.
I have so many stories to tell.