Superhero in Pink Boots: My Outlier

Charlie on his  throne at the farm: Margaret River, Australia, 2014

He was the only boy. 

Surrounded by four elementary-age girls, three moms, and two dads, Charlie held his own on our recent trip with great friends to Margaret River, Australia. 

We'd find him early in the morning practicing his swordplay with sticks, jumping into (or off of) piles of hay, chasing sheep, and helping out Uncle Vinnie who runs the place. In pink boots.

And the girls ended up constructing the fort, for the most part (Charlie added some finishing touches). It was the most intricate fort I'd ever seen -- the little engineers designed a fantasy land I wish I'd had as a part of the neighborhood gang in the '70s.

Entering the girls' fort: Margaret River, Australia, 2014

As a teacher, I'm always trying to look beyond gender stereotypes to encourage all my students: from the boy who loves to write poetry to the girl who wants to research war tactics (those are just two recent examples) and just see them as writers and lovers of literature. So when I came across my teaching partner Betsy's Outliers sketchbook, I knew I had to include my kids: my own children, of course, but also add a little thought of how I can transfer what Mayzie and Charlie teach me into the environment I make for my students.

So I want to dedicate this post to two people.

One, the fabulous Betsy Hall, who alongside me on the journey of our recent historical narrative poetry unit, allowed so much freedom of choice that our students could take poetry and see that it's one way we, as writers and thinkers, can zoom in on anything we want, even if it's seen as some teens as typically "feminine." 

If it was three voices exploring the brutal effects of post-traumatic stress disorder from the Vietnam War or a poem's speaker delving deep into what it was like for a child to sit, waiting for someone to find her in the rubble of the World Trade Center's overshadowed buildings, the gender lines were blurred as to who wrote it.

And two, it's for Charlie, who picked out the pink boots in the store. And the Batman shirt.

Outliers at our house are the NORMAL ones.

Lego mini figs are a big deal at our house.  But I'm not sure why. We get really excited about recognizable characters such as Cowgirls or Mummies, but within minutes they seem to mutate into decapitated unrecognizable aliens.  Pristine mini figs in their unaltered factory state are the true outliers in our house, and they are usually only found in forgotten dark corners or under couch cushions.  

Can you spot the outlier?

My sketch this week was motivated by my visit to the Red Dot Design Museum in Singapore. The museum is full of good design...well designed objects, technology, furniture, graphic design, posters, videos, etc. While there, I saw some books on typography and fonts. I love fonts. I'm kind of obsessed with them. Betsy's sketchbook theme is "Outliers". So, I thought I'd use fonts to think about outliers. Can you spot the outlier? It's obvious. But what makes that one the outlier? (Hint, there is more than one right answer.)

Am I Really Cut Out For This?

This whole sketchbook gig terrified me to begin with.  I’ve never thought of myself as an artist, and I see a lot of artsy types in this group.  Needless to say, I was totally intimidated, and my first piece was a real struggle.  I decided to go with collage as my medium since I can’t actually draw anything, and then I did my best to block the whole project out of my mind until the Saturday before it was due. That day, I traipsed over to the Holland Village magazine stand and waddled away with more than $100 dollars worth of magazines.  I spent about eight hours that afternoon and evening flipping through pages, tearing things out, trimming edges, and spreading a wide variety of cutouts across the blank pages of my sketchbook.  Nothing looked right though.  I left a limp design on the page, shuffled dejectedly to bed, and hoped inspiration might strike overnight. 

When I woke up in the morning, the only inspiration I could find was a 50 dollar bill in my wallet, so I traipsed back over to the magazine stand, picked up another few magazines, and threw in a National Geographic for good measure.  When I sat down to my sketchbook again, I wiped it clean of cutouts and started over.   One of the things that had been bothering me was the white space lots of little cutouts tended to leave behind, so I started looking for interesting backgrounds. 

Then Scott Riley called.  I whined like a frustrated Kindergartener, told him I was not cut out for this gig (pun intended), and he said something that changed my perspective on the project completely.  He said, “You may not be an artist, Betsy, but you ARE a designer.”  It’s true.  I’ve always loved design.  When I was a kid, I used to play architect.  When I visit my parents during the summer, I enjoy rearranging their family room while they go to the store.  Here in Singapore, a number of friends have asked me to help them place their furniture, hang their art, showcase their tchotchkes, that sort of thing. 

So when I set down my phone and went back to my sketchbook, I looked at it with a designer’s eyes.  Quickly I realized that my problem before was that my page was a cluttered cacophony with no focus.  I needed to strip it down to the minimum, but still fill the page with something interesting that would also fulfill the theme.  National Geographic saved me.  In fact, it has played a part in each of my first three designs.  Now I try to complete each sketchbook entry with the fewest number of cutouts possible while still drawing people in with some combination of images they may not have thought to put together themselves. 

Maybe I AM cut out for this gig after all.     

One of these kids is not like the other ones

Betsy's "Outliers" themed book arrived in my hands as I was thinking about writing. I was wrestling with the balance of humor and tragedy and working on personal narratives that I worried would make my readers wince (but made me chuckle). I was also listening to a lot of David Sedaris and Anne LaMott. After all these weeks absorbing wit and self-deprecation and also pondering how to write memoir and not be disgusted with oneself, I decided--enough already--and let a little dirty laundry air. Some of us were slow to gain wisdom. I spent most of my 20's on a runaway train of folly and now-hilarious choices. The result is a silly clothesline of nine former dates: Flip the card, read the narrative, and find the outlier!  (Becky)

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