probably about to offend you

It was a hot July morning in 1976.  Mom was already at work and my dad had decided it was time for all living beings to be awake in our house.  He was pretty fond of waking us up by 9:00 am just because he thought it was bad for people to “lay around the house all day”.  My brothers and I were gruntled at having to get up at such an ungodly hour in the summer, but luckily, there was solace at the kitchen table.  

The bright colors and fun characters from Post, Kellogs, Quaker Oats and General Mills were there to cheer me up and to get my day started with a bolt of sugar.  I would eat my cereal while studying the back of the cereal box.  While I took in my sugar, I also took in the latest adventures of Cap’n Crunch.  I mean, if I didn’t help him get through the maze, he might never get his Crunch Berries back.  

Yes, I am grateful that my parents bought us “sugar cereals” when we were kids and I’m happy to tell you why.

First of all, and please forgive me for this painful honesty, you can always tell the people who didn’t eat sugar cereals when they were kids.  With some notable exceptions, they came from parents who were a little too conscientious and were probably the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s versions of parents who believed everything they read on Facebook.  Maybe there were granola parents.  Maybe they had time to be home and cook a natural and organic breakfast for their spawn every day.  Many, though, just heard that sugar cereals were the devil and they ran with that.  All most likely underestimated the pop culture education their kids would miss by not knowing the story of those darn kids always trying to get their hands on Lucky’s charms or the Trix rabbit always trying to get his hands on the kids’ sugar cereal.  Silly rabbit.

More importantly and more seriously, I’m happy that I had the visual influence of sugary cereals in my early childhood development.  Cap’n Crunch and his brightly colored Crunch Berries took me on seafaring adventures on the color filled back of the cardboard cereal box.  Super Sugar Crisp’s Sugar Bear, who from adulthood looks a lot like a smooth talking cereal pimp from movie, showed me how to be cool by not stressing about things.  

There at the kitchen table, my blood sugar levels spiked as my eyes feasted on the sugary sweetness of bright colors, bold imagery and cartoon narratives about good and evil.  I really don’t even have to squint my eyes very hard to see the similarities between that sentence and my latest artist statement.  

I’m basically a human hummingbird so it’s no secret that I love sugar and sweet things.  In recent years, I’ve come to associate bright rainbow colors as the visual equivalent of sugar, especially when it comes to my artwork.  Those bright colors come from white light and light is associated with the birth of our Universe.  You can interpret that religiously or spiritually if you ascribe to such beliefs or you can take it at face value.  Our solar system star provides exactly the right amount of light and temperature for life to exist on our planet.  Everything we are able to see is because of how our eyes perceive that light.  Light is life.  I like to further extrapolate that into light being a symbol of joy, happiness and hope.  

Joy, happiness and hope...those were all there at the breakfast table with sugary cereals.  None of this was serious and all of it was whimsy.  This was the last place that magic and silliness could tickle our tastebuds before we headed out into the real world, a place with no leprechauns, no talking Sugar Bears and no good Cap'ns working hard to bring the freshest Crunch Berries to our tables.  The actual treasure inside those "specially marked boxes" was the secret to a happy life.  Don't take things so seriously.  Life can be fun and silly and magical if you're willing to look for those things.  

As a student of design, I know that those cereal boxes were intentionally using bright colors and cartoon mascots to appeal to kids like me hanging on the back of the metal buggy in the local grocery store.  As the wonky wheel squeaked down the cereal aisle, I would cast my eyes over the sea of color and happiness stacked on each shelf and my mouth would water as I begged my mom for my flavor of the week.  

As an academic engaged in constant creative academic research, I know that those colors and those flavors influenced my visual vocabulary.  I know that I learned a particular way of storytelling by reading the back of the cereal box.  I see how that sugary sweetness flows through my color and imagery choices today as I stand over my drawing table and visualize how a cereal mascot could be the perfect way to suggest something over in that space.  

But then I wonder if the healthy kids will get the reference.  

Then I wonder if they ever knew true happiness and silliness like I did when I tore into that box of cereal after I helped my mom put up the groceries and then had cereal for dinner.

If it's been too long since you laughed, if you don't enjoy your job or if life just has you in a chokehold right now, let me suggest you take a walk down the cereal aisle and pick up a brightly colored box of artificial sweetened cereal with a fun cartoon character on it.  Enjoy a bowl while you study the back of the box and let some whimsy back into your life.