A self portrait from freshman year. Now you see what I mean about being just ok.

Freshman year at college was a mind-blower. Surrounded by extremely talented artists who were far more sophisticated, and who'd had professional training, I began to doubt myself and my talent.

It was like I was living in opposite-land. I’d always been the best artist everywhere - my class, my school, and even USDAN, the arts camp I’d grown up at. My parents, both artists, had always encouraged me and I’d learned how to mix colors, stretch a canvas and draw in perspective at a young age. I have a memory of realizing I could easily draw someone’s profile - I was five.

But the first day of drawing class at RISD, when the model stood before us nude and we started sketching quick poses, I quickly saw how outclassed I was, how much better everyone else was. It was a rough lesson.

RISD was also really competitive. There were less than two hundred freshman, and reputations were made right away. I shone in 2 D (Two-dimensional design) and was ok in 3 D, so I averaged out somewhere in the middle. I’d always been first before.

Somehow, somehow, I kept going, and listened to our teachers, and started thinking purposefully about what I was doing, when before I’d just done what came naturally. And I improved. And I started to see where my strengths were.

In drawing, my teacher was always telling me to use my whole arm; to use all of the paper; to try charcoal or some medium other than a pencil. My drawings were stuck in the middle, tight and small. Focus on the whole, not the parts, she said. I heard her, but could never seem to do what she was asking.

One beautiful spring day near the end of the semester I sat outside on the beach (a small patch of green in the middle of campus) and caught a buzz with some friends during lunch. I don’t know what was was with the batch, but I got seriously altered.

Back in class the model posed in front of me. She was young and round and pretty. Her legs were spread eagled directly in front of my face - it was an anatomy lesson. I don’t know what possessed me, but I started drawing with colored conte crayons, using texture and thick lines to define areas of the model’s body. Sort of cubist, sort of fauvist - but I wasn’t thinking about it, I just drew. I used the whole sheet of paper - at the end it was filled with color and shapes, and when the model took a break I realized the class was standing behind me watching me work.

My teacher asked me what was wrong.

After that I was the one who drew the blue vagina. And people started asking me to crit their work. And I knew I was a good artist.

My teacher took the drawing - she wanted me to put it in the year-end freshman show. She asked me what I called it. “Her secret garden.” was the best I could come up with.

At the show - a big deal with art critics and the Providence art community - people kept coming up to me exclaiming, “did I really do it? Was I a lesbian? What was my inspiration?” Then the president of RISD tapped me on the shoulder and said she loved the piece and wanted to buy it. Buy it! What did I want for it? I had no idea what to ask. So she offered $100, and I took it. She took the drawing and I haven’t seen it again. I don’t even have a photo, only a memory. Happily it is enough.