I quit “trying so hard.” I wrote like I was writing to my best friend. I added facts. It’s just not right.

I’ve made things in Star Studio. I go to Art Openings. I work at every exhibition opening event and spend time in the galleries. So why can’t I pick up a brush, pen, piece of chalk, prick my finger and write in blood, whatever – and spill my brilliance into a sketchbook or an electronic diary? Throughout my life I’ve owned countless notebooks and sketch pads that I’ve bought only to sit in a corner and get dusty. Packs of markers of every width and color that I draw the same ol’ Ninja Turtle(usually Donatello – but only because I have a fondness for purple).

Some of my work is on the wall at Zest – the great restaurant on 54th St., where they have placemats you can draw on and a glass of crayons. But it’s no Picasso. I think I even asked the my dining guests at the table “What should I draw?” It was winter. I made a snowman. It’s hanging next to – you guessed it – a little kids drawing of a Ninja Turtle.

Lately I’ve gotten it into my head that I want to illustrate children’s books. As long as someone were to write the story, I could draw the pictures that go along with it. And I have recently discovered that a knack I do have is for scrap-booking. But I want to be a blogger – a GOOD blogger. So I guess I’m asking this – what inspires you? I could join the Army to Be All I Can Be, but how do you get over a creative block? My inner Martha Stewart is trapped. Please, set her free…

In the years since Star Studio opened, countless visitors have declined the invitation to make something in the drop-in studio by saying “Oh no, I’m not creative.” Huh. I’ve never had a child say that, though. Something happens between childhood and adulthood that prompts many of us to draw a line between who we are and who we think we aren’t. Maybe children are just braver, less worried about making a mistake. In the end, kids are just more open to the concept that making art is fun. I think many adults (and I’m including many adults who identify themselves as artists, myself included) sometimes forget that simple idea: it is fun to make things. It is satisfying to create, even if the thing you are creating is seemingly trivial, or unaccomplished, or ugly, or merely pretty.

I have the good fortune to see children making art often – in Star Studio, in the studio classes offered here at the museum, and at home, where my own children put markers, crayons, and Play-Doh to nearly daily use. Looking up from a work in progress, my son, who is not quite four years old, will say to me “Y’know, Dad, sometimes you’ve got to just check the theory at the door to the studio and just let the paint fly. Let someone else decide if that mark is genuinely felt or merely a self-conscious echo of a mythologized time and place you never knew. It’s just paint, man. Lose the paralyzing introspection and just make the work. Now grab me a chocolate milk.” I’m summarizing, but you get the idea. The point I’m trying to make is that we were all creative as kids, and we all still are…it’s a basic element of being human. Making art is one way to affirm that. We made stuff when we were kids because it was fun to do, and it still is, if we let it be. So, grab your Play-Doh, your sippy cup, and get to work.