Life's Beauty

I went for a walk Sunday, big surprise as I take a walk everyday. Yesterday I walked west toward John Adams, my junior high back when I was a whole 12 to 14 years old. I walked down past the ball field and water tower and up 18th avenue to 37th street and home. It was around the water tower when the drizzle started and I thought how smart I was to leave my umbrella at home, in the closet, on the hook where it does no one any good. I also realized I wouldn't melt so I enjoyed the rest of my mile walk home.

As I started my walk yesterday I was thinking about all the great things I got at the Dick Blick art store and all the fabulous things I want to paint, draw, create and so forth with my bounty. I also realized as I walked that I am so overwhelmed some days by the prospect of creating that it cripples me.

Since transplant I notice things different, I notice the color of the sky is bluer, the grass greener, the flowers more vibrant and contrasts between colors and textures just pop like I am looking through some sort of special lenses. I guess in some way, as cliche as this may seem, I liken it to what Dorothy must have felt landing in Oz after leaving Kansas. A world that just existed to a world with more promise and excitement that could have ever been imagined.

When I am outside I am overwhelmed by how beautiful things are and I wish with all my heart I could capture it in some form. That is why I use my camera so much, hopes of capturing something that I can hardly describe when it speaks to me.

On my deck, right now, I have  flower pot with sweet potato vine and  petunias. The vine is the most beautiful chartreuse and the petunia is a fuchsia, the combination is wonderful and when the sun shines on it and the leaves cast shadows upon itself it just stirs me to want to do something with those colors.

I have thousands of ideas for paintings floating through my head, I wake up with ideas, I go to bed with ideas and often I lose ideas. I would need a sketch book strapped to my hand in order to get down everything I think of.

Everything in life is beautiful, I only hope that others can see the beauty that surrounds them everyday. It can be the way the shadow from the tree dapples the ground or side of the house. The way the sun reflects off a piece of glass on the wind chime. It's those moments that something captures my eye and makes me catch my breath that I realize how lucky I am to have been there at that moment.

What is beautiful in your life?

Old Home Farm Summer 2012

Old Home Farm Summer 2012