“So I’ll tell you a secret instead:
poems hide. In the bottoms of our shoes,
they are sleeping.”
-Naomi Shihab Nye (from A Valentine for Ernest Mann)
I think drawings are the same. They ask that we sit still, and suspend self-judgement long enough for them to speak. They will emerge. They will peek out from under our pillows or stride boldly from behind the fridge. They would fill the studio to capacity if we let them, if they knew we would listen. All that chatter would overwhelm the room, some telling jokes, others telling stories of childhood wonder. And if we are lucky, once the cacophony starts, they hear our gentle “shhh, one at a time…” and settle down to wait for our attention. All we have to do is turn off our inner, distracted prattle and let the drawings speak through our hands.