GARAGE SALE ART SHOW

We are often amused and sometimes humbled by our grandchildren.  Case in point:  My grandson eyeing

my new Blackberry work phone wanted to call his mother.  By the time I got the words, "it is hard to

 figure out..."past my lips, he was saying hello to his mother.  Schooled!

At the time of this writing I have no doubt they are smarter than their grandmother by far.  Their senses

have yet to be dulled by "the facts" we adults love to lean on.  Those facts that we hold so precious because

they are our carefully crafted excuses to get out of stuff we don't want to do.

The first canvas painting I ever did.  My grandmother kept it until she died.

I learned this lesson a while back from my grandson, Austin.  Austin is a country child.  He is unfettered

by the weight of city children who have everything because Johnnie next door does.  There is no Johnnie

living next door.  He, his sister and cousin Vinnie have tons of fun on a giant tire his dad got him.  They stand it upright, get on the tire and then walk.  The tire moves forward and they must balance to keep the tire upright and moving. This is kid-dom on the coolest level.

Austin is also sharp as a tack and always amazed me with his mechanical thought processes since he was a baby. He tends to speak his mind and as most children are, brutally honest.  He and his sister love to paint with me when they come over.  I always have a painting on the easel I am trying to "fix", nothing is ever

quite right or good enough.  Like many adult artists, I suffer from the curse of comparison.

The garage sale  painting.

As we were painting, I stepped back to look at the current canvas on the easel.  Austin stepped back with

me and we viewed the painting.  Austin was the first to speak.  You know, Ya-Ya, that is good enough

to sell at a garage sale. He looked up at me and beamed.  I reveled in the compliment and waited until

later to just lay on the floor and laugh at myself.  He was so sincere and I was so stupid to take myself so seriously.

He said one more thing that really affected me more than his compliment to me.  As we went back to painting

he simply said, "I just like moving the paint around."  His sister chimed in, "me too."  Like a clap of thunder that follows a lightning bolt that just hit its mark, I realized I did too.  I paint because I like to move the brush

around, it is fun but I have made it a chore.  Without knowing it Austin changed the entire way I paint.

Yet unfinished.

Instead of trying to force my flowers into a style I am not comfortable with, I have begun to be more

comfortable withe loose impressionistic style that comes naturally.  Painting has become fun again. It flows
a little better as I become more comfortable with who I am as a painter. 

Still practicing.

Yep, the next quarterly yard sale we have, I will hold my first art show.  The hummers will probably be priced right around $5.00.  Thank you Austin!