When I was a kid, my favorite class was art class. I loved it. It was free-flowing, it was creative and imaginative, we learned new techniques for making cool stuff. And my very favorite art teacher was Mr. Beck.
Most days, we had an art class taught by the usual teacher. But on Wednesdays, Mr. Beck came to our classroom. Like most schools, ours had started to skimp on the humanities budget, so Mr. Beck traveled around and went to different schools each day, and taught a different classroom each hour. Wednesdays were my favorite day.
Mr. Beck clearly loved what he did, and he enjoyed the kids, and he also especially loved me. I didn’t recognize it then, but he loved my questions and enthusiasm, he loved that I loved art. (I still do.) I just knew I loved him.
My questions often involved whether or not I could change the assignment somehow. Mr. Beck always listened to my ideas, nodded, and then said, “Yes, that sounds cool, try it.” Well, I thought my ideas sounded cool, too, but I wanted to know if I was allowed to try them.
One day, in second grade, I went to Mr. Beck with an idea to change the assignment. He listened, and then he said, kindly but seriously, “You know, Melody, you don’t have to ask permission to change the assignment. If I explain something and you have an idea how to do it differently, you can just do whatever you want. In fact, you don’t ever have to ask anyone’s permission to do any art however you want. Okay?”
And I nodded quietly and went back to my desk, and did the stuff I wanted without asking first, and Mr. Beck smiled approvingly at me gave me As on all my artwork and I loved him.
One day in fourth grade, we had an art assignment. I had been living by Mr. Beck’s words since the day he spoke them, and I never asked permission from anyone to change an art assignment. I just did what I wanted. For reasons unknown to me — still to this day — my fourth grade teacher hated my guts. I seem to randomly inspire that in people for no reason that I can discern — every once in a while, I meet someone and they just despise me as soon as I say hello. Their problem, not mine, but it’s mysterious to me.
At any rate, my fourth grade teacher was one of those random people. So when I went wild with an art assignment she gave us — as per Mr. Beck’s instructions — not only did she give me an F for not following directions, she refused to hang it on the wall for parent-teacher day. I was devastated. My mom went to bat for me, and to this day will tell people what a cool piece of art I made. I honestly don’t recall the details of the assignment or what I made instead.
What Mr. Beck failed to tell me when he gave me those excellent instructions was: Sometimes people will try to make you conform and do as they say instead of what you want, but that doesn’t change the fact that you don’t have to ask anyone’s permission.
I was definitely beaten down by my fourth grade teacher’s response to my art. But I remembered what Mr. Beck said, and I knew that he was a real artist, and my fourth grade teacher was not an artist. I knew that she didn’t understand, and wasn’t qualified to judge, even if she had gone ahead and judged and tried to make me feel bad about it. She did make me feel bad; but not about following Mr. Beck’s instructions, and not about my art.
I wish I could find Mr. Beck today and tell him what a deep impact he had on me and on my life. His instructions — I wouldn’t call it advice, because he didn’t give it to me that way; he told me, here is the rule — have stayed with me since that day. Even in the face of adversity, even as a kid still, I knew he had it right. I don’t have to ask permission to do whatever I want with my art.
I would like to pass that advice on to anyone and everyone who wants to make art of any kind. You don’t need anyone’s permission to do it how you want. No one’s. Even if they don’t like it. Even if they think they have some kind of power to make you conform. Even if they try to make you feel bad.
You don’t need anyone’s permission to do what you want with your art.
Ever.
