RELEARNING TO SKETCH

relearning is a beautiful thing. it's like rediscovering a favorite song or rereading a favorite book. 

there's something about remembering once forgotten things that excites me.

a memory, or pieces, rather. 

on a day last semester, i was having lunch with Kate on the grass. two and half things happened that day that i won't soon forget. the first a discovery, one that i rediscovered today, of self. i've always been a visual learner—i have to see it work from every angle to fully understand it. we were talking about doodles and how they help us remember things and focus in lectures. she showed me a few that she had just finished in statistics. they were intricate and interesting. for as long as i can remember i've been drawing the world around me. it had never occurred to me, up until that conversation, that for the past years i'd been filling the margins of my notes with penciled lines of geometry, shadings and gradings, abstract and abnormal objects not because i was bored but because i was focusing. it's funny, isn't it? that something so obvious from the outside can only be found in a conversation between friends eating on a grassy hill in the sun. then the second and a half thing happened. Leonardo da Vinci is credited for imagining one of the earliest forms of the helicopter called an ariel screw. while Kate was flipping through her notebook looking at doodles, i reached for the styrofoam cup i had just drained. two quick tears and few folds later, i had a mini ariel screw. it didn't work, but boy did it look neat! and then i heard a phrase i'll never forget and hope to hear for as long as life. what are you making, Clay? that's it. that's me. that's my definition. and i hadn't really ever heard it until just then. i'm Clay and i make things. things that people are interested in. as i sit here at my desk making things i've often wished that i could hear that from over my shoulder just one more time. what are you making, Clay? 

today, i relearned to sketch. to focus.