I am no artist. In fact, my grandmother died thinking that a beautiful first grade drawing on her wall for 30 or more years was done by yours truly. I think that was my first act of plagiarism. Someone else drew it for me as I always felt that I had no drawing abilities. To this day, I know I don’t. Don’t get me wrong, I can draw stick figures till the cows come home, but anything with more depth, clarity and composition is outside of my scope!
But, one thing that is within my scope of practice, as a hippie, is to be able to paint hope through trials. It is within my ability to paint a vision of perseverance. And I take after my 80 year old mom, as an artist, by being able to paint a very clear and detailed picture of stubbornness. Ask anyone that knows me and their head is nodding up and down vigorously!
It is also within my scope of practice to paint a picture of resilience. Many times, the pictures start out with a bit of blurriness, but I always use hope to provide more focus to the picture. Imagine an old school camera, where you adjust that focus. My pictures may be more near sighted - where I am focused on the details so much so that I lose my long distance vision. And then I pan out and am able to see the forest through the trees. I’m able to see the bigger picture.
Sometimes, I don’t even paint in the lines. Not so much because I don’t want to, but sometimes my hips have had other plans. There may be those squiggles you see in my life’s drawing, but the bottom line is that those squiggles are part of being human. Part of being imperfect. Part of life! I have no intention of erasing the squiggles as they make me who I am.
But, regardless, of whether I have drawing ability or not, I have created a painting that includes hope, happiness and grit! I am a work of heart!