Every Tuesday I watch Carlos in his grey pants and shirt pushing his two-tier cleaning cart up and down the beige carpeted aisles on the 17th floor of The New School. Short with a paunch and wire rimmed glasses, the older, grey haired man rarely speaks a word or flashes a smile. To the writers, designers and programmers working in this office, he seems as invisible as the specks of dust that he wipes away.
But Carlos has a secret.
He confided in me that upstairs, in the conference room on the 18th floor, in the lower corner of a white board, there's a drawing. Sketched in dry erase marker is a scenic landscape far removed from cubicles and computers.
The artist is Carlos, and everyday he checks if his drawing has endured the intrusion of arrows, bullet points and scribbles from strategic meetings and brainstorming sessions.
Carlos quietly told me, with cleaning cloth in hand, that since he was 12 growing up in Puerto Rico, he knew he wanted to be an artist. He always sees images around him.
"Even in cracks in the wall, I see a picture," he said.
He paints landscapes and portraits at home everyday, except Mondays. That's his day of rest.
"I eat dinner with my wife, watch TV on those days," he explained, "but Tuesdays, I start painting again."
Carlos the cleaning man is Carlos the creative man.
If he can make the time -- and find the space on the corner of a whiteboard - why can't we?
What a great post and such a great point! I love Carlos and his clandestine whiteboard drawing! I know what gets in the way of me pursuing my creative outlet - watching too much TV and Facebook! Sad but true. It's so hard to just turn them off and exercise my creative muscle. I have to take a note from Carlos - commit.
ReplyDeleteA carefully structured observation, with a beginning, a middle, and an end. Suzanne, like Carlos, has painted her own picture. With wet ink.
ReplyDelete