Look! It's Art!

I don’t remember drawing or painting at all until the summer of 2016. (Mind you, by that year I was eligible for Senior Citizen discounts.)

I was actively writing a memoir and began working through Julia Cameron's book The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity to get past writer’s block. What an incredibly powerful book! One day Julia's exercises had me spend the day out in Nature. On the way back a pretty image of flowers popped into my mind. When I got home I went to the dresser where my precious mother’s watercolor paper, paints, and brushes were stowed, sat down at the kitchen table, and painted a picture I now call "Fantasy Flowers".

Joy and excitement filled every inch of me. I could not believe what I had just painted! I was ecstatic! I hurriedly went to town and bought a matte and frame and — that very same day — entered my painting in the local county fair. Guess what. That very first attempt at creating something worthy of "art" won a blue ribbon. (Now, we live in a TINY, tiny county, so if you want to win a blue ribbon you may want to enter in our fair where competition is NOT steep.)

I continued painting pictures that summer and fall and had some of my paintings printed onto cards. What better encouragement could I have than when they started selling? Because it all seems like a miracle I coined the phrase “Magic in My Mother’s Brushes.” (I keep telling my hubby that the little studio he built is where the "magic" happens.) I can't help but feel Mom hanging out with me every time I am working there.

Because of Mom

My sweet mother was an accomplished artist and she profoundly shaped my perception of beauty in the world. She pointed out beautiful colors and perceptions in unexpected places. One of her many, many talents. I am so blessed to have much of her artwork to enjoy and to be inspired by.

The following is a tribute to her part in the start of my own Artist's Life.

Magic Brushes

It was early Spring. The world was still bland in shades of grey and brown in recovery from the heaps of snow the long months before. The farmers were just beginning to turn the earth. I never liked winter. Even as a child I had no use for nor could I see beauty in anything except the lush, warm, growing greenness of summer.

We were driving along the countryside. I was in back. Mom was up front. I was seven.

“Look at that beautiful field!” she exclaimed as we passed what I saw as lifeless, boring, and uneventful dirt. "It's just a brown field!" I said, trying to make sense of her words.

True to the Teacher she was, my mother tried to explain what she saw through her gifted, Artist eyes.

“If I were to paint that field, I would use a myriad of colors. See the purples and blues over there? And see the grey greens on the rise just above?” I remember looking harder. In a moment or two they were there — all those blues. And the purples! And then I saw the grey in the greens.

This was my first introduction to really seeing beauty. What an amazing thing my mama could do, to view the world through eyes that perceived everything in story-telling shapes of values, texture and color. Although I explored creative outlets in ways other than painting pictures, this lesson — and my mother’s appreciation for all things being beautiful — helped shape how I saw the world around me.

She was in her 70's when she learned about the dreaded disease that was inflicting her body. Eventually the Parkinson's got too much. Unexpectedly and abruptly my elderly parents came to live with us and to be closer to my sister. And so did all their “things.” The blessing of time spent with my precious parents in their old age far outweighed the accumulation and near suffocation of the inherited, too-many belongings. Once mother left her body and traded the beauty of this world for another, I had the daunting task of what to do with all the STUFF. I abruptly began discarding, giving away, and selling some of the accumulation in an effort just to breath. It felt like a heavy, endless calling.

To help with my grieving, my brother recommended I start doing “morning pages”, something he had heard author Julia Cameron talking about from her book The Artist’s Way. I bought the book and began to do everything Julia said to do.

One day, late summer, a couple years after mother’s passing, I had been on an “Artist's Date” up to the high country. On my way home, I saw a hillside covered in swaying, dancing grasses. Almost instantly an image of bouncy flowers playing in those swaying grasses came into my mind. Being infatuated with flowers I wanted to create that delightful image! As soon as I got home I went right to the back room where my mother's brushes had been standing like a bouquet in their glazed ceramic jug. Those, and her big white paint pallet and heavy, bumpy watercolor paper had been stored and untouched for two years. Unlike much of the other items from her years of being an Artist, for some peculiar reason I had not been able to part with these last, sentimental remnants of who my mama was.

Miraculously, those fun, fanciful flowers I had imagined emerged their way out of those well-dried watercolors with the well-used brushes onto the still-fresh paper. I had to stop and look in amazement at what had happened. I had never felt such Joy! There must have been magic in my mother's brushes.

Wanting to hoot from the roof tops, I went to town right then and purchased a matte and frame for the little 5x7 painting. I drove over to the fair grounds to the art building where the Art Department was accepting entries for the tiny, upcoming county fair. Little did that anonymous judge know what he did for me and that first work, “Fantasy Flowers”. On opening day of the fair I stood with my eyes bugged and mouth agape because there it was swaying in the slight breeze from a nearby window. A blue ribbon.

And so, it began. And so it continues.

I am profoundly blessed to honor my mama's legacy. I feel her near when I paint — muse-like. I feel her whispering as she points out the colors all around me. I am deeply influenced by the beauty she made so apparent in so many things. She left a precious gift of perspective and then enticed me into a glorious, self-discovering, healing journey. And the “magic in my mother's brushes” still leak out blues, and purples, and grey greens, and so much more.

More

(… for you who are more curious.)

Some Personal Details

I am first and foremost a wife to my best friend and mother to four beautiful, amazing daughters who have given us the lights of our lives: our grandchildren! We live in SE Idaho on a little farm surrounded by the beauties of Nature which inspire me to live, breath — and now paint pictures!

Having spent over 30 years as a Salon Owner and Hair Stylist, I specialized in women’s hair color and cuts and was blessed to enjoy a successful career in the beauty industry. However, I never quite felt satisfied. I have a Creative-crazy brain that finds it hard to channel in one direction for very long. Thus, I have dabbled in many creative businesses during my years of doing hair. I did enjoy the adventure of creating the new spaces each time I opened a new Salon (or other type of business), but once the ‘new’ wore off the insatiable cravings for satisfaction would began again. I kept searching for what I wanted to be when I grew up.

And now that I know what I want to be when I grow up, I don't want to grow up! This is way too much fun.

You're Asking. I know you are …

I KNOW! I know. Including my maiden name makes for a long, long title. It results in an especially long URL. And then there is that big signature.

But seeing and using my maiden name is a CELEBRATION! I celebrate each time I write or look at it. I celebrate because I have been released from bondage. The excruciating weight of Shame I held onto for things I did clear back in my teens had me hobbled and crippled, I thought, for life. I avoided the name of my youth for decades. I hid from it. The very sound of it stung.

Growing up in a Mormon home I learned early on that God was Supernal and Good. What I didn’t know until after I was 50 years old was the goodness of His Grace.

So each time you wonder “Why did she make her name so long?” I hope you remember that I chose it for a very, very good reason.

God, Art, & Joy

Over the past few years I have wanted to be closer to God and have wondered how I could know and feel Him with me. My sister helped me to realize that I feel closest to God when I am feeling Joyful. And that is how the Holy Spirit speaks to me is through Joy. Even in very sad or tough times, He still speaks to me through Joy. So my sincere hope is to create and share the Joy that I see in God's remarkable creations that "please the eye and gladden the heart" that you, too, may feel Joy.