Not so fast....
Choosing to be an illustrator or artist wasn’t going to be that easy.
I grew up in a family that was all over the place as far as input, encouragement and sometimes discouragement about what my brother and I might want to do when we “grew up.”
Over all, my parents were very supportive of our interests. Even though they weren’t thrilled that I read, and collected, comics, they didn’t really actively try to stop me. I believe they figured at least I was reading something and I was showing an interest in learning to draw.
One thing my brother and I realized relatively early in our lives was that neither of our parents were really interested in spending a lot of time with us. It wasn’t that they disliked us or were mean, instead, it seemed to be a combination of two things going on.
First, they both worked and seemed to be pretty tired when they got home.
Second, they didn’t seem to really know what to do with kids. This seems bizarre in my mom’s case because she was a kindergarten teacher! However, whenever I saw her teaching her class, she was the boss, and maintained an amazing amount of discipline and control over, roughly, thirty kindergarten students.
At home, not only was she not the boss, but she was in a house with a husband and two sons. Having been an only child in a home with a very strong mother, I really don’t believe she knew how to interact with, or handle, three males. Particularly, two very energetic, loud and mischievous boys. In addition to my brother and I, my early memories of my dad are of a man who was, in many ways, very much of a kid himself. He’d watch horror movies with us, he’d hide in the house, then when my brother and I’d look for him, he’d jump out and scare us nearly out of our shoes, (as we screamed hysterically).
My mom never liked hysterically screaming kids!
My brother, Chris (lft) and I, very early, when we actually got along!
Looking back, I’m amazed at how many things I was interested in. Maybe all kids are like that, but it seems like I bounced from one idea for a “career” to another every month or so. I do remember getting a little criticism as to what my current “kick” was, particularly from my brother and several of my friends.
Now, understanding more about ADHD, I find it makes a lot more sense. I’m also thinking my dad probably had ADD or ADHD too. He was always starting projects, then getting distracted and jumping to another project leaving a trail of unfinished stuff all over the house and garage. I’m sure this example set by my dad of not finishing things didn’t help me. Add to that the fact that I truly seem to be ADHD and it makes for some definite issues when it comes to completing things.
On the upside, (and there IS an upside), I was exposed, particularly through my dad, to a LOT of different interests. As I said, he was a geologist, but he was also a pilot in World War II, liked photography, was a map maker for a while, worked on oil rigs, was a realtor, had something of a workshop in the garage and occasionally built stuff, (often unfinished). We lived too far from Los Angeles to get a strong TV signal, (this was before cable or satellite TV), so he tried making lots of tv antennas to put on our roof to hopefully get better signals. He liked target shooting, making wooden airplane models, doing crossword puzzles and was usually reading something along the lines of self improvement or self hypnosis when these kinds of books were not very common. So, I think this just helped me feel much more comfortable thinking about getting into a variety of interests or careers.
While my dad seemed to tolerate and sometimes actually encourage my multiple interests, everything seemed to come down to, “That’s fine, but how will you make a living doing that?” With my dad we always heard, “Go to college, find a career, then go ahead with your hobbies.” I suppose this makes sense. Particularly for someone who grew up during the depression in a family that apparently really struggled.
My mom with my brother.
My mom’s influence was quite different. She also generally encouraged us to be interested in a variety of things, but definitely had a preference for certain areas.
Early on she talked a lot about how my brother and I could become doctors or lawyers. She loved watching tv shows about these professions and would invariably mention, while watching them, “You boys could be a lawyer”, (if she was watching Perry Mason).
Other than these two areas she really loved and emphasized the arts. She took us to classical concerts, museums and made sure we took music lessons, first on piano, then trumpet.
So, while there were certainly difficulties in my family, particularly later on, I don’t remember ever being actively pushed to choose a specific career or discouraged when it came to following an interest that my parents might not understand. As long as there seemed to be a decent chance of making a living at it they let us pursue our interests.
All over the place
Howard Carter examining the sarcophagus of King Tut (1922)
Wikimedia Commons
The Hindenburg disaster, May 6, 1937 Photo- Public Domain
I guess the result of all this, particularly when coupled with ADHD, was that I really got into a lot of different things. I became very excited about so many things that I was pretty clueless about what I wanted to do when I “grew up.” For instance, for a while I was interested in archeology, particularly after reading about Howard Carter’s discovery of King Tut’s tomb. That led to reading about the discovery of Troy by Heinrich Schliemann. Then, as mentioned previously, I was quite caught up in reading about dinosaurs and dreaming of going on “digs” and finding fossils. This was spurred on somewhat by my dad being a geologist. While not too interested in actively looking for fossils, he did have a collection of shark’s teeth he’d found as a boy in the Sierra Nevada mountains.
As I write this, I’m struck by how “un-extraordinary” most of my interests were. If I list them they seem fairly typical of kids at that time, particularly boys. For instance, in addition to dinosaurs, tombs and ruins, I went through periods of being fascinated with warfare, particularly the Civil War, World War One and World War Two. With disasters - such as the Titanic and Hindenburg and with crime, especially sensational or unsolved crimes. Reading the book, “In Cold Blood” by Truman Capote at age 12 helped end my interest in murders. I had nightmares for weeks after reading it. (It’s probably pretty tame by today’s standards).
Then there was space exploration and travel. Again, this was not surprising in view of the space race that was going on at the time. I imagine most kids, male or female, were really excited about reaching the moon and what exploration lay beyond.
Looking back on it now, I see the variety of interests a really wonderful asset. It seemed like there were an endless number of paths I could choose and never be bored. Of course, I wasn’t considering which I could actually make a living at, which was paramount in my parent’s view of what my interests should be geared towards. Also, I didn’t stop to think that, just because I was interested in something, it didn’t necessarily mean I would be good enough at it to make a living.
Given all the things I took an interest in, there were two interests that overshadowed everything else and, to this day, excite, motivate and inspire me. These interests were, and are, Art and Film.