Mr. Potato Taught Me How to Find My Creative Voice

April 29, 2026•3 min read

An oval. Four lines representing limbs. Simple shoes. A top hat. Cane. Eyes so he could actually see. And a memorable nose...

Mr. Potato, The Internet.
Internet, Mr. Potato.

The Drawing That Started It All

This was the creation of my child-heart. To my Daddy. On birthdays and Father's Days and anniversaries and just when I wanted to tell him that I loved him. Mr. Potato had an entire life that I created during the years I would draw him for my dad.

He was married and had LOTS of spud babies. I laugh when I think about it now because I'm not sure how Mrs. Potato got any sleep with all her thirty-something children. She would show up from time to time...the family portrait would fill the page with chubby small circles around the happy couple...but it was the story of Mr. Potato that developed in my adolescence.

The Freedom of Childlike Creating

There is something so liberating about watching a child paint/draw/dance/sing...fill in the blank. Zero inhibitions and overflowing THRILL and WONDER. It's almost like they are present in the process of creating and discovering new parts of themselves along the way.

Yes. I write that a little tongue-in-cheek.

I didn't give a toot about who liked Mr. Potato. I liked Mr. Potato. I loved drawing him over and over. Because I didn't care about what other people thought about Mr. Potato, I was able to give him and his story time to develop. To grow. To become all that he was meant to be.

SIDEBAR: Thank you Heavenly Father and Almighty Creator for giving ME time to develop and mature too.

Permission to Discover Your Creative Voice

I've been thinking lots about Mr. Potato recently. Ruminating on what I would like to give myself permission to discover in my present-day creative endeavors. As an artist, there is this deep desire to create something unique. To have a 'voice.' To be known by a style or mark or color scheme. I have felt this way for a long time. You move from inspiration from other artists to inspiration in your own play. Your uninhibited, thrilling, wonder-filled, child-like play.

How Dwelling In Color Became My Style

That's how I came to develop the 'look' for my abstracts. The funny thing is, I wasn't trying to come up with the look. I was just Dwelling In Color...which is my creative meditation practice with a single Bible Scripture. Dwelling was just a tool to get the Word to sink in my soul deeper. In fact, I tell my students over and over and over in my course to NOT think about making anything pretty or any art when they are dwelling in color...just allow the paint and the movement to ignite the other parts of the brain to receive the Scripture in a different way.

BUT because I spent alot of time with this tool...like Mr. Potato, my abstracts developed into something that I can say are genuinely mine.

If You Make Art, You Are an Artist

By the way, an artist is just a person that MAKES art...there's no certificate that someone hands out for that title...I waited for a long time to be validated as an artist and discovered that I had credentials to say I was an artist because I made art. If you make art, Sweet Friend, you too are an artist.