The police chief’s executive assistant rarely left phone messages for me. I was the grave shift sergeant, largely invisible from the daytime operations of the police department.
“Sergeant Weiss, the Chief would like to see you Thursday morning before you leave your shift.” That was the recording that played back when I checked my voicemails.
A patrol officer leaving the squad room overheard the message and said, “Well that can’t be good.”
“Don’t you have a patrol shift to get to?” I said to the grinning officer, who chuckled as he left for the sally port. I wasn’t about to admit that he was right.
“If you could kick the person in the pants responsible for most of your trouble, you wouldn’t sit for a month.” -Theodore Roosevelt
I tried to forget about the message all night, but deep down, I knew what the issue was.
My cartooning.
Specifically, a recently published cartoon in which I lampooned another police agency.
Making a life
I loved to draw as a little boy. I’d sit for hours, sketching birds, animals, and elaborate doodles. My favorite birthday and Christmas presents were Mead Academie sketch pads.
I liked the cartoons in Mad magazine, studying the linework of cartoonists like Jack Davis, Sergio Aragones, and Don Martin. Before long, I was crafting my own cartoon characters.
Newspaper editorial cartoons soon caught my eye because, unlike most comic strips, they contained great detail. I was too young to understand the politics but loved the artistry of political cartoons.
My childhood piano teacher, Mrs. Hincenbergs, used to cut out newspaper cartoons for me. Every Friday as I strained to play various pieces, all I could think about were the cartoons.
After the lessons, Mrs. Hincenbergs reached into a cardboard box and pulled out a handful of cartoons. I always thanked her profusely, and as my mother drove me home, I’d study each cartoon in detail.
In high school and at university I drew editorial cartoons for the campus newspapers. I wanted to become a professional cartoonist, but my father (who was funding my education) suggested a “more reliable” career path.
“I’ve learned that making a ‘living’ is not the same thing as ‘making a life’.” -Maya Angelou
After obtaining a Master’s degree in criminal justice administration, I became a police officer. I enjoyed my new career but continued drawing cartoons. I created a blog called Policetoons.com (now defunct) to entertain my fellow police officers.
Here are a few examples of those old police cartoons I drew.
A great strain on the affections
As my police career progressed, so did my local cartooning. I began submitting editorial cartoons to the county newspaper (The Santa Cruz Sentinel) and soon began moonlighting as their editorial cartoonist.
I loved attending editorial board meetings and crafting humorous cartoons to lampoon local political issues.
Unfortunately, as my cartoons garnered more and more attention, so did curiosity about who the cartoonist was. It wasn’t long before readers figured out I was a local police sergeant.
Locals who disagreed with my editorial view of things would sometimes call the police department instead of the newspaper to complain. This did not please my police chief.
It all came to a head when the newspaper published a cartoon of mine making fun of a neighboring police department for improperly disposing of a dead cat.
I thought the cartoon was hysterical, but the police chief of the neighboring police department felt differently. He phoned my police chief to complain angrily.
“Different taste in jokes is a great strain on the affections.” -George Eliot
And that’s why the Chief’s executive assistant left me a message to come see the Chief at the end of my graveyard shift.
The consequences of any misfortune
At the end of my graveyard shift, I sighed and knew it was time to face the music. The corridor leading down to the Chief’s office seemed longer and more imposing than usual, but I summoned my courage.
The Chief’s executive assistant wasn’t in yet, so I knocked on the Chief’s office door. He opened it and said, “Come on in, Sarge.”
The Chief asked me to sit down, and he pulled up a chair next to me. Then he held up a copy of the newspaper containing the cartoon in question.
“You need to make a choice. Either be a cop or a cartoonist,” the Chief said.
“Sorry Chief, I didn’t mean to cause you any trouble. My thought is that off duty, I’m free to publish political cartoons. You know, free speech and all.”
The Chief shook his head and said, “Not when your cartoons affect the professional relations between two police agencies. The reality is that you pissed off their police chief and several of their officers. We need to rely on one another. If you want to draw gag cartoons for police magazines, that’s fine, but this kind of stuff is problematic.”
I had a lot of respect for my Chief, and like it or not, I knew he had a point. My editorial cartooning was gaining more and more attention. It was becoming a conflict with my law enforcement career.
I could have tried to push the issue, but there’s a difference between acceptance and pig-headed bravado.
“Acceptance of what has happened is the first step to overcoming the consequences of any misfortune.” -William James
I apologized again to the Chief and resolved to give up my editorial cartooning. It was a hard thing to do because I loved everything about it. From drawing the cartoons and seeing them in the newspaper, to the many letters to the editor and comments on the street I received.
The horrible inclemency of life
Since childhood, the creative muse was always inside me. The desire to draw cartoons and create artwork was an unending compulsion. Whether in staff meetings or training classes, it wasn’t long before I started doodling.
The constant need to sketch and doodle got me into trouble long before the police department. In grade school, I was often admonished to stop drawing and pay attention.
In many ways the cliche was true. I “suffered for my art.” One time I got hauled before the principal for some “inappropriate” cartoons I drew of several teachers.
My father chastised me another time for getting a “C” in my high school biology class. The reason, as the teacher shared with my Dad, was because “Johnny gets distracted drawing.”
“Perhaps it’s good for one to suffer. Can an artist do anything if he’s happy? Would he ever want to do anything? What is art, after all, but a protest against the horrible inclemency of life?”― Aldous Huxley, Antic Hay
Perhaps some of this resonates with your own experiences? Is there a passion that has consumed you, with similar consequences?
The budding writer whose classroom attention succumbed to meandering story ideas. The musician whose brain keeps playing new tunes at the neglect of work responsibilities. The dancer who just can’t sit still at her school desk.
For creative people, artistic compulsions can distract us from school, work, and relationships. They can cost us. We might even begin to question the value of our inner, creative calling.
A cork bobbing in the tide
Chase Jarvis is an award-winning photographer and the author of “Creative Calling: Establish a daily practice, infuse your world with meaning, and succeed in work + life.”
In an interview at authorhour.co, Jarvis talked about the utter importance of your creative passion, which he likens to a superpower. As Jarvis notes:
“One, if you ignore it, you have disconnected from your superpower, which is not just creating small things on a daily basis that you think of like art or even building a business, but most importantly, that you are the architect and the creator of your life. You have agency over that and you’re not a cork bobbing in the tide. The life of every person that you look up to, admire, and respect, that was created. Life isn’t found, it’s not discovered, it’s created.”
In the interview, Jarvis recounts the story of a parent/teacher conference. The second-grade teacher told Jarvis’s mother that her son was “better at sports than art,” which crushed Jarvis.
Jarvis liked and respected his second-grade teacher, so he abandoned his creative pursuits and focused on sports. Jarvis shared the following:
“That’s culture imposing its shoulds and woulds on us. I remember it like a light switch–I stopped doing my comic strip, I no longer performed magic, and I doubled down on what I was getting external validation on, which was sports.”
Eventually, Jarvis stopped taking cues from parents and teachers. He had gone to college on a soccer scholarship, with an eye on medical school. He also pursued a Ph.D. in philosophy. Then, he dropped all three to become a photographer. It’s what he most identified with and what he wanted to do more than anything.
According to Jarvis:
“As it turns out, unused creativity is dangerous. The harm of not paying attention to this superpower that basically is the reason that humans exist on this planet, which is to be able to build and create things, emotions, and connection and their lives. Turns out there’s some pretty heavy consequences.”
The consequences of not giving space to your creative passions can include depression, anger, addictions, relationship issues, work problems, and more.
If you spend all day at the office daydreaming about your passions, that should tell you something.
When I abandoned editorial cartooning, it felt like there was a hole inside me. I had excised something important and meaningful in my life.
I abandoned cartooning and turned to landscape painting to satisfy my creative muse. I took workshops, watched instructional videos, visited museums, and painted regularly. To this day, landscape painting has become a big part of who I am.
But the neglected cartoonist in me didn’t give up. It was no longer enough to doodle occasional cartoons on birthday cards. So I created a fine art website. I began blogging on the website and then illustrating my articles with cartoons.
It felt really good to be publishing cartoons again. Like a part of me was recovering from some long illness. I was paying attention again to the thing that never left me, my love of cartooning.
Return to the creative world
The late painter Rick Howell used to manage a stock brokerage firm, but his true passion was landscape painting. He eventually left the stock brokerage business to become a full-time painter.
Renowned painter Kevin Macpherson, in the Introduction to Rick Howell’s book, “Chasing Shadows: The Art and Philosophy of Rick Howell,” wrote the following:
“Rick had a successful career as a manager of a stock brokerage firm, but once the art spirit took hold in his heart, there was always a void if not fed. I have had many art students of all ages and from all walks of life who enjoyed art as children, but because of societal pressures, pursued a more likely path to a secure lifestyle. But so often the art life gets in the way until they could no longer suppress the desire to return to the creative world. This was the same for Rick; he listened to his inner voice and left the business world behind.”
Rick Howell spent many years as a full-time, professional painter. He immersed himself in the great outdoors. He lived simply in a restored, 150-year-old Adobe home that was once the town’s general store and trading post in the 1850s.
Sadly, Rick Howell passed away a few years ago due to heart trouble. Still, imagine if he remained in the stock brokerage business, denying the thing that never left him. The thing that brought him purpose and fulfillment. The thing that set him free: landscape painting.
Every child is an artist
I stuck it out in law enforcement for over 26 years. I enjoyed my career and spent the last ten as Chief of Police. In another four years, I could have maxed out my pension. But the siren song of creativity and art could wait no longer.
I retired early and became a full-time writer and artist. Now, I can’t imagine doing anything else with my life.
“Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.” -Pablo Picasso
Sometimes we don’t have the luxury of pursuing our creative passion full-time. For many years, I became a pragmatic juggler. I was a police officer by profession, but an artist by passion. I’d stay up late, get up early, and take vacation time to pursue my art.
My artistic calling sustained me my whole life. It was like a steadfast friend I could always count on.
How about you? Have you been neglecting the thing that never leaves you? That creative passion inside you, begging for release? If so, it’s never too late to turn things around. You don’t have to give up your day job to start carving out time for your artistic passion.
Rearrange your schedule. Start saying no to discretionary commitments. Set up routines and habits to maximize your creative growth.
Your creative passion will never leave you. All it asks, in return, is that you never leave it. If you ignore or neglect your creative calling, it will eat away at your health and soul. However, if you nurture your loyal, inner passion, it will reward you deeply.
It did so for me. It did so for Chase Jarvis and Rick Howell. It will do the same for you.
Before you go
I’m John P. Weiss. I draw cartoons, paint, and write about life. For the latest essays and artwork, get on my free email list here.
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This post was previously published on Medium.
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Artworks by John P. Weiss