 was
born in San Francisco, but three weeks later my dad accepted
a  job
transfer to Philadelphia. My mom says I was so small, she
just packed me in a shoebox.
Two
years later, we moved back to the Bay Area and lived in the
hills of Marin County before moving 45 minutes north to Santa
Rosa where I grew up watching The Adams Family and
The Brady Bunch on our black & white TV.
 When
I was small, I used to put on theater shows just like in The
Little Rascals and on an occasional Saturday, spontaneously
sing Let Me Entertain You in the local diner without
permission. Who was I as a kid? I was an indian, an astronaut,
a cowboy, an entertainer. I read Harriet the Spy
and I became Harriet. When I saw The Swiss Family Robinson
at the movies, I begged my dad to build us a tree house and
he did. We played pirates there until dark.
I started to draw the summer following 6th grade, while riding
in the backseat of our station wagon to Seattle for a family
vacation. I traced an entire Richie Rich comic book.
Then a Peanuts book. It was a 16-hour drive up there.
I drew a lot. By our return trip home, I was drawing the backs
of my parent’s heads while I sat in the backseat. I
was hooked. It was right there traveling along I-5, I daydreamed
abo ut
being an artist.
When
I was a small girl, I felt somehow a special person, destined
to make some unique impact on the world. As I have become
an adult, over and over again I have heard people tell me
the same thing. They too, felt special and with unique destinies.
Maybe we all feel that in some deep, inner place.
Welcome
to my Show & Tell. It is a process. Of not arriving there,
but of moving in that direction.
--
Shawn Wallace
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