Daily Guideposts - Your Source for Inspiration

December 2, 2008

After all the naysayers had spoken, she could still hear what her parents said: “Of course you can.”

If You Can Dream It

by Mary Engelbreit
St. Louis, Missouri

When my sons were little and people asked them about their mom, they said, “She colors all day.” Their reply still makes me laugh, because coloring is the kind of activity a lot of adults might think strange. It’s right up there with dreaming. Dreaming, some think, is a waste of time.
    Good thing my mom and dad didn’t believe that. They had a different perspective, one they passed on to me.
    My mother claims I was drawing from the time I could pick up a pencil. My early efforts weren’t all that different from those of other kindergarten kids. But something happened when I was in the second grade to change all that: I got glasses. Glasses with blue frames that curved up like kittycat eyes and had sparkles in the corners. When I put them on, I couldn’t believe it. “The trees have leaves!” I cried. My fuzzy world was brought into focus, and I eagerly put down the tiniest details on paper. I had so much fun that I started drawing a character who looked like me, with big glasses and short hair, often wearing hats just as I did. I called her Ann Estelle, after my maternal grandmother. And I imagined how she would go with me as I became an artist and drew pictures that made people smile.
    In elementary school I had been a good student, but by high school my grades had dropped so drastically that I wasn’t allowed to take art. I couldn’t wait to get out of school and pursue my heart’s desire—to illustrate children’s books. I told that to my guidance counselor and she was appalled. “You can’t do that,” she said. “You’ve got to be practical. Get a degree in English so you can teach.”
    When I graduated from high school I was ready to start my life as an artist. I went to work at a local art supply store, where I learned about different media and how to use them. More important, I got to know all kinds of working artists. I realized it was possible to make a living doing what I had always wanted to do, so I soaked up as much information and advice as I could. Later, I learned a lot more at a tiny local ad agency called Hot Buttered Graphics. When the owner moved out of town, I was 22 and on my own. Of course there were people who thought being an artist was too unrealistic for everyday life and often asked, “So, Mary, what are you really going to do?”
    When I married Phil Delano in 1977 I was working as a freelance artist, getting a little work here, a little work there. We lived from check to check on Phil’s social worker’s salary so I could continue to draw. But even when finances were tightest, Phil never pressured me to get a “real” job. I did feel pressured, though, to go to the big city. “You can’t stay here and expect to succeed,” I was told. “You’ve got to try to sell your work in New York.” I was just so hopeful that I could make it as an artist, and I felt like it was going to happen.
    Phil had a friend in New York City who helped me set up some interviews with several children’s book publishers. So in 1977, I anxiously took off with a bulging portfolio for the Big Apple.
    Editors all liked my work, but they almost never hired freelance or out-of-town book illustrators who didn’t already have an established name. One art director, though, did suggest I try greeting cards. At the time I was kind of crushed, because I really had my heart set on illustrating children’s books, and to me, greeting cards seemed like a step down.
    Then I thought of my parents, and the faith they had had in me right from the beginning. I remembered when I was nine years old, and hurried home to tell Mom that I had met my first real artist. She was a woman who sometimes baby-sat for us and had her own studio set up in her basement. “Mommy,” I announced, “I need a studio.”
    Mom didn’t say, “Honey, we don’t have space for you to have anything like that” (which we didn’t). She merely nodded matter-of-factly as though my request made perfect sense—and emptied our linen closet. Out went the vacuum, mops, and towels, and in went my desk, chair and pen-and-ink set. I sat crammed in there for hours, learning how to draw by copying the illustrations from my mother’s and grandmother’s old-fashioned storybooks and signing my work with my very convenient initials, ME.
    From that time on my parents always treated my art as serious business. Bolstered by their support, I continued on even without formal training, telling myself over and over what they had instilled in me: “Of course you can become an artist. Keep working for it. If you can imagine it, you can achieve it. If you can dream it, you can become it.”
    So, back from New York, I picked up my colored pencils and got to work. When I really thought about it, I realized my one-shot illustrations were perfect for greeting cards. At the risk of sounding like a Pollyanna, I can hardly think of a disappointment that you can’t eventually turn into a good situation. So I found myself doing what I had done since childhood, illustrating those wonderful little moments of life . . . what was outside my window and inside my heart.
    From all those classic children’s books I had copied as a child, I had learned the technique of pulling a key line out of the text and illustrating it. Into my mind came words I had overheard long before, when a young friend was being lectured by his father. “Son,” the father said grandly, “here’s a lesson you might as well learn right now: Life is not just a chair of bowlies.” I created a design based on this scrambled-up phrase, took it to a greeting card company, and “Chair of Bowlies” became my first nationally distributed greeting card.
    Excited by continuing sales, I turned to a treasure trove of quotes I had collected through the years, from philosophers, friends and strangers. I’ve always been interested in what makes people act the way they act, do what they do, or say what they say. I try to put that in my cards, and to my delight, it is something that really seems to connect with people. Sometimes I quote famous people like Ralph Waldo Emerson or Marcel Proust, or I use verses from the Bible (for an upcoming book I’ve illustrated the Christmas story in Luke). Other times, I draw inspiration from my family or from my own life, remembering when my bossy tendencies as a child made me think, “It’s Good to Be Queen.”
    When my children were born—Evan in 1980 and Will in 1983—so was a whole new source of material. For instance, one day when Will was eight, I was feeling overwhelmed. Sensing how flustered I was, Will tried to comfort me. “I know what’s the matter, Mom,” he said earnestly. “You just want a little peace of quiet.” I smiled, calmed down—and used his words for my next greeting card.
    My cards sold so well that in 1986 Phil and I formed our own greeting card company, and things kept growing from there. Now, in addition to greeting cards, Mary Engelbreit Studios produces calendars and books, as well as everything from figurines and jewelry to notepaper and T-shirts. We also have a national decorating magazine, Mary Engelbreit’s Home Companion, a retail company and even our own Web site.
    Inevitably, some critics snort and say my work is too cute, too sweet, too good to be true. They just flat out don’t believe it. But what I draw is taken from my life. I had a fantastic time as a kid. So, to people who say, “You’re drawing an idealized world where you’d like to live,” I say, “Of course I am. What’s wrong with that? Don’t you wish you lived there too?”
    Today my studio is only 10 miles from where I was born—from where my parents encouraged a little girl to color away in a closet, to use her imagination and dream her dreams. As far as I’m concerned, dreaming isn’t a pleasant pastime, it’s a responsibility. We all have to do it, to bring a sense of fun and wonder into our daily lives. And to be the best we can become.