As my six-year-old self added final touches to her drawing in art class, I looked over at the sketch of the girl seated next to me. Elegant and pristine, it faithfully matched the image we’d been assigned to reproduce.
What I’d drawn looked nothing like it. It was my own rendition, with countless details changed. At the bottom of the page, I’d even written a story to accompany it.
This was common for me in art class. A woman with a turban became a monk carrying a fruit bowl. A sewing machine became a friendly boat. That day, a man carrying a staff turned into a scraggly androgynous stick figure running a mop with a brick-like head across a nondescript floor.