Artistic License: The Genesis of a Master Crayon Maker

I’m a writer, editor, organizational wizard, and Master Crayon Maker. It’s the last hat that I’m going to talk about.

A brief history of how this crayon came to be:

When I was a girl growing up in my mother’s house and I created art, she used to make me walk it out to the trash. When I wrote in my diary, she would find it, break the lock, and read it out loud to me. So I decided that I had to reclaim what was stolen from me. And – I had to wait until I was 18 and out of the house I grew up in before I could start my soul retrieval.

I call it soul retrieval for a reason and this didn’t happen until I was in my 40’s. Because in that decade – one day – a magazine arrived in the mail that I hadn’t subscribed to. It was called The Shaman’s Drum. Shamanism is an ancient healing tradition & the world’s oldest spiritual practice AND a way to connect with nature & all of creation.

At this same time, I also felt a pull in my belly to Winslow Arizona. Why Winslow? I had only heard of Winslow in the song “Take It Easy” by Jackson Brown & Glenn Frey:

“Well, I'm a standing on a corner in Winslow, Arizona, and such a fine sight to see…”

Curious how a song lyric can be an agent for change.

Once there, I discovered the crater at Winslow – I didn’t know it was there before I had set out on the road – AND I discovered The Painted Desert. I had also decided at this time to follow my curiosity and dip my toes in a shamanic soul retrieval workshop in Albuquerque, New Mexico. So I combined the desire to see Winslow with this class.

It was when I was in The Painted Desert – it was Einstein’s birthday – that I was inspired by the striations in the rocks which inspired my crayons & their layers.

So you can see how forces, desires, things lost – conspire to get our attention and create a confluence of events to assist in our healing, and in this case, the reclamation of my artistic voice. I started making crayons after this trip, and giving them away.

When I lost my job in 2004, I found myself in networking groups, and one day, that small still voice told me to bring my crayons. I questioned that voice and argued with it – if you can imagine that – but it silenced me by again insisting that I bring my crayons and talk about them.

After I finished talking, a woman’s voice from the group piped up: “So why aren’t you charging for your crayons?” I didn’t have an answer, and so the real adventure began.

1st – how the name came to be: One night, I had a dream. It should be noted that I’ve kept a dream journal since 1976, so I record and pay attention to my dreams. THIS DREAM said to check the foreign language dictionaries. So the next morning, I looked at the usual suspects: French, Italian, Spanish, and German. Nothing grabbed my attention. Then I looked at Polish. And there was a word – kolorowac – which means “use crayons”.

So I named my crayon a K O L O R W A C K S and trademarked the name.

2nd – I studied my design books to review basic principles of good design and created my business card. That business card had to show what the crayon did and this took six months. I also designed the crayon packaging when I sell to stores.

Then I decided that I would do two years of craft fairs in Portland and southern Washington. Why not one year or three years? The prompt was two years. That small still voice was growing louder and said two years. It had not misdirected me up to this point, so who was I to argue?

After that I had the crazy idea to try and place the crayon in brick and mortar stores. Because of my background in a global policy think tank, and 20 years of research experience, I knew that I could expect a lower than 1% response rate from the letter I sent out. But in that 1% was a store in Bellingham WA who was my first customer, and so I dove into the deep end of the retail pool.

And all along the way, I continued to explore and refine how I crafted the crayons, and the tools I used. And how to talk about it at craft fairs and farmer’s markets, and how to engage people.

At this time I had a SCORE mentor and I would not have had the adventure I did if it hadn’t been for Bill Winton. SCORE is a government agency which utilizes present and former small business owners to help mentor those thinking about or starting a small business. What Bill did was create a space for me to explore, and ask questions, and make mistakes. He let me discover, in my own time, my own path with the crayon.

And what I have learned is to follow the lead of the crayon, much as I would if it were a child expressing what it wanted to be when it grew up. So even though other crafters at these fairs and markets were in my face, and fairly adamant that I should sell on ETSY, I didn’t take that path.

These crayons are my Zen meditation. I lose track of time, but not of what I’m doing and how I’m dripping and combining colors. If too much time goes by and I haven’t made crayons, my body knows it – it’s almost a hunger. And then I put everything else aside and create crayons. Each hand-crafted stick takes about 20 minutes, while the stars take about 45 minutes.

There are at least 42 different colors in each Kolorwack. Why 42? It’s my homage to two things that I love – baseball & science fiction. 42 was Jackie Robinson’s number. And in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy the answer to everything in the Universe is 42. I like to think so too.

I also like to think that in some small way, which when you think about it is not small by any stretch of the imagination, that I’m contributing to world peace by encouraging kids of all ages to create art and express what’s inside and to put it onto paper because the striations, the layers – much like what I saw in The Painted Desert – help to create the art.

In closing, I want to say that I have two left feet when it comes to drawing, as you may have surmised from that long ago childhood trauma – the most I can manage is stick figures. But I decided to take a bold step and create note cards from doodlings – that’s what’s on these note cards – doodlings from craft fairs in Portland when I was bored and my fingers wanted to be moving. It’s also a strong visual to people to say – if I can do this, so can you.

For me, the power in artistic expression comes from doing what you’re afraid to do, what terrifies you, what keeps you awake at night or wakes you in the middle of it.

I’ll close with a quote on my refrigerator door, which speaks directly to the heart of what I’m talking about. It applies to any creative act, any act of courage that encourages artistic expression. The playwright referred to in the quote is Athol Fugard, the great South African dramatist, actor, and writer:

“I have learned that when a playwright is stumped, he must ask himself what it is that he cannot get himself to say. Fugard has managed to hold nothing back: his rage, his tenderness, his desires, his loyalties – as indeed every playwright of note has done.”

Any questions?