I truly enjoy storytelling. I did it for many years as part of my job. Telling stories to kids around a campfire or under the stars at the environmental education centers where I worked.
It was a fun way to engage the kids in listening and often becoming part of the story. I did not always feel that way though. I resented that in a setting where we were supposed to be teaching science and natural history I was being made to become an entertainer and well as taking kids fishing and canoeing, playing four square and volleyball.
But someone changed my mind. I had been enjoying the Keepers of the Earth and other books with native American stories for awhile and the chance to work with one of the authors at a conference was great. He said something important at that conference. He said that the most important story anyone has to tell is the story of their own life. And there is no greater joy than helping someone enhance their own story through the experiences you are doing with them.
OK I turned my thinking around. I thought back to the experiences I had where others had helped me enhance my life's story and I knew that those times learning to canoe, ride a horse, sitting around a campfire singing silly songs helped me become a better me as well. I could do anything with much more joy because of Micheal Caduto's words.
I never became a great foursquare player or volleyball coach, but I did continue story telling. I took a summer arts class with it and love anytime I can work a story into something I am doing. But now I have found that as I do almost anything the reason behind why and how and where and when often create a story to go with my art or project. I find myself quite disappointed when people just want to look at the object without the story.
Maybe that is why I find so few paintings very compelling. when I look at them I am missing the story, the who, why where, how... of that image. I tend to gravitate to the artworks where I have a little bit of that, but I mostly gravitate towards creating artworks that have a story.
