IT’S BEEN AWHILE

It’s been awhile since I last blogged. I hesitate to blog now wondering if another year might zip by.

Random musings from a procrastinating children’s author. Nebraska is where I found myself last week. Hanging out with my oldest daughter. I did things I hadn’t done in well, I won’t say how long. 🙂 One of those things was taking a painting class. A class where almost everybody (except the art students) expects to produce something somewhere between ordinary and not so great. The class instructor was fun and did her best to make each one feel their art was wonderful and certainly worth hanging on a wall somewhere. We were shown how to paint a rendition of Van Gogh’s Starry Starry Night. I was eager to start and splashed paint with recklessness abandonment with a large dose of insecurity. My daughter peered over at what I was doing and said, “Gee Mom, that’s nice!” “I wasn’t convinced. I looked over at her canvas as well as the lady’s painting behind me. I didn’t think mine was very good. I was struggling with being crippled by my critical comparing eye. The instructor came around and told me, “Your painting looks great! Good job!” I still wasn’t convinced.

At the end of the lesson, a group photo was taken. I was sandwiched between my daughter and son-in-law. We each held our work of art. My daughter immediately posted the photo on Facebook. The next day, after church, I met one of her new friends. I introduced myself and my daughter eagerly told her how we had done an art class the night before. The friend, said, “I know, I saw your photo posted and I didn’t know who the person in the middle was and I thought it might have been the instructor because the painting was so good!”

I started to laugh and told her, “Friend, you just made my year!”

Was I convinced, I had produced something ‘so good’? No! I just learned a valuable lesson again. “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder!”

i guess my reckless abandonment paid off for that beholder.

Here’s a postscript to the story. I just now got off the phone with Denver Airport’s Lost and Found. I left my painting in the airport bathroom on my return trip home. So far, it hasn’t been turned in. I sure hope there’s another beholder out there, who thinks its beauty is not worth keeping.