How to Draw a Radish:
And Other Fun Things to Do at Work

The Pure JOY in Creative Play! Posted May-27-2007
Play! I say... with sidewalk chalk art.
The first person to really teach me about the playful side of art and creativity was author Joy Sikorski. In the mid-1990s I came across a review for her book “How to Draw a Radish: And Other Fun Things to Do at Work” and was immediately captivated by her pairing of "fun" and "work" (for example, see Joy's One Large Confetti... and more!). I requested the book through our local library and devoured it in exactly 9 minutes and 59 seconds. (Well, give or take a few seconds; think of a famished alligator with a bird landing on its nose: 1... 2... SNAP!)

Discovering Joy and her whimsical how-to draw books couldn't have come at a better time in my young adult life. I was in a "serious" corporate job where I constantly wrestled between being my playful creative self and being a corporate hologram (hollow-gram). Her book was an affirmation that having a playful side at work was okay. I didn't have to be business-minded all the time, and as soon as I let that in, the dry-erase board doodling began and the desktop gumball machine came out.

Allowing my playful creative self to have its own space in my work and personal life soon led to some exciting discoveries and changes for me. For example, the doodling on the dry-erase board eventually led me to pursue a new career direction in graphic arts. I went back to school, earned a degree, and celebrated my insatiable yearning for learning, creating, and playing with new concepts and tools. My new creative work was a better "fit" for my creative personality and I was happy to go to work!

Serendipitously, getting more involved with creative expression led to the launching the Creativity Portal Web site in 2000, which initially began as a labor of love and has since grown into an amazing community of creative, smart, funny, and passionately productive people who inspire, motivate, and nurture creativity and creative play in the world. Interestingly, I came full-circle with this chapter in 2004 when I interviewed Joy for the Creativity Portal about her work as an artist and author. How often do you get to interview a personal hero? I was elated!

When I look back on the chain of events that led me to where I am today, I know that the book review I found in the newspaper for How to Draw a Radish played a key part in opening up a door to infinite possibilities to me. Sure, I would have eventually found my creative path with or without the book, but this is how the events in my story unfolded. This is how it DID happen. Some might even say that it happened just as it should have. I wouldn't disagree.

One last thought: I can't help but to smile at the irony of the word that means "the feeling of happiness that comes from success." You guess it: Joy. •

P.S. Don't miss having fun with sidewalk chalk art.

© 2007 Chris Dunmire www.chrisdunmire.com. All rights reserved.