I was situated in third
grade, Detroit Michigan, art class, A. L. Holme’s elementary school., 1964.
Miss Monroe was my art
teacher. Not blond as was a well-known Marilyn, nonetheless pretty.
It must be said, or
written, rather, that art was not a comfortable subject for me.
It was one day, I
remember crisply, that Miss Monroe attempting to inspire unrestricted
creativity, said “You can color outside the lines.”
I took her words
literally rather than artistically.
I proceeded to use wide, erratic,
and tense movements of the crayon to achieve what I thought resembled a Jackson
Pollack or other 1950s artist whose work might adorn the cover of a jazz album.
Miss Monroe was not pleased
with my eventual artistic presentation.
She said “That’s not art.”
I responded, “You said we
could draw outside the lines.”
She rolled her eyes and
expressed a slight, “humph” as she turned and walked away.
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| picture from lifepointmatoon.org |
It was then that I
learned that many, if not most people, are very imprecise in their language,
leaving to generalized understanding, or misunderstanding, to accurately approximate
their intended meaning.
At that moment, I decided
that I would impose upon myself the discipline of precise articulation, choice
of words, and punctuation so as to achieve precision in meaning whether the less
disciplined in language cared to apprehend it accurately or otherwise.
The reader may blame , or
as I do, credit my seeming verbosity upon Miss Monre.
