Five years ago, I found myself facing the worst case of artists-block/depression I have ever known, before or since. For the first time in my life, I found myself feeling like an artistic failure. I was so depressed about it, it was physically painful. I couldn't draw – not a thing. I couldn't force it out anymore.

Up until this point in my life, I had deemed myself a “realist”. I drew portraits, pictures of people and celebrities, characters from my favorite films, etc, and took pride in making them as real as I possibly could. Cartoony drawings, though, were outside of my capabilities. After confiding this to a friend, I was given a book on how to draw comics. The gift was well meant, but my inability to replicate even the simple instructions in the book left me questioning my ability to draw at all, and before I knew it, I realized that I was depressed. Really, truly depressed.

I wanted to draw again, but having become my own worst critic, I just did not know how. It was my niece, Sidney, who would become my saving grace.

Notebooks smudged my pencil sketches, and scrap papers usually became lost and wrinkled, so I long ago took to saving my drawings in page protectors in a giant binder. One weekend, my then-youngest niece Sidney came to visit and, with an inquisitive mind and a fascination for everything in my house, eagerly asked if she could look at my drawing binder. I couldn’t bear to look myself, but of course let her flip through it.

“You’re so good,” she said, turning the pages. “How did you learn to do this?”

Good? Ha. If she only knew I sucked. I sucked terribly. Look at all those tiny hands and gangly arms! I was horrible. A pathetic excuse for an artist. I would never be anything of value. But I would spare her young mind from my degrading thoughts.

“Um,” I tried to give her an honest answer, “I just… never gave up. I always kept trying, kept practicing.”

She sighed, looking at a fairy I had drawn years earlier. With a truly sad look on her face, she shook her head and said, “I’ll never be this good.”

I blinked, stunned. How could she say that? How could she compare her work to mine? She was just starting out, but my work I had been slaving over for years, since before she was born. How could she possibly think her drawings, which were comparable (if not better than) the ones I made at her age, were bad? If she just kept going forward, kept practicing, and wanted it badly enough, she could do anything – I had no doubt of that. She wasn’t a quitter – when we refused to give her candy as a tiny kid, she stashed peppermints in the waistband of her underpants, for heaven’s sake! (Sid, please don’t kill me for sharing that…) She was born tenacious. How could she talk herself down and bully herself like that?

And that’s when things clicked. What broke my heart to see in her was what I, myself, was wallowing in. I had become, in a sense, what I hated most – a bully. Not a bully who torments others, but instead I had turned on myself. I was an art bully and convinced myself that my failed attempts at something new meant I not only had failed entirely but, even worse, had always failed, shattering years of my hard work and artistic confidence. I had some desperate changes to make, and I had to make them ASAP. I’m not a mother, but I do have little ones in my life that look up to me. For their sake, I had to face my fears, conquer my demons, and start looking at my work the way I want my nieces and nephews to look at their own: with hope and determination.

It was a long road, full of bumps, twists, tears, lots of ink, paper-cuts, and pencil sharpeners. Something finally clicked and I found my way back. New art books, some exciting new pencils, the discovery of ink pens, and a few deliciously nearly-unknown store locations where all these items can be found for incredibly low prices (Jerry’s Artorama in Tempe, AZ, I love you soooo much!) all brought me back to life.

That small ray of hope from my sweet niece was like a lighthouse in a storm – it showed me the way out of the dark.

Since then, I have made a promise. I will encourage others, not matter their age or level of skill. When I critique the works of others, I will do so honestly but gently. I will always respect the rights of the artist. I will not allow nor tolerate those who steal the works of others. I have compassion on my flaws and courage for my attempts. I will continuously strive to better myself, but celebrate how far I have come, never how far left I have to go. I will be an Anti-Art-Bully.