Art Has Served Me Well By Kathleen Gamble
T
here are a lot of successful, even famous TCKs in the arts. Many of them probably never knew they were TCKs or what it means to be a TCK. But they are good actors, musicians, artists. We are good at moving into other worlds, pretending we are other people, reinventing ourselves, creating new personas, and surrounding ourselves with imaginary scenarios. We incorporate all the different stories and fables we have heard from around the world. We hunt with the Masai in East Africa, we ride camels across the desert with the Bedouins, we drink in beer halls with the Germans, we dance Giselle at the Bolshoi in Moscow, we are glass blowers in Venice, and we wander through museum after museum. Our imaginations are constantly being poked.
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Among Worlds
I went off to boarding school when I was thirteen and ended up in a painting class in order to get out of study hall. I had always been a ballet dancer as well as interested in acting. I had never thought about being a painter. I was exposed to a new world and I loved it. Our teacher taught us to build our own canvases, and we could work in oils or acrylic. I chose acrylic because I wanted things to happen more quickly. I wanted bright colors. My thing was landscapes and abstracts. I loved the mountains and sunsets. I liked big canvases with lots of color. My first painting at age thirteen:
