Artwork

In 1949 my mother’s only sister, Aunty Alice, apologized that her Christmas presents that year were not much because medical bills had eaten up most of her money. But her gift for me was the very thing for which I longed most  at age nine– a set of Prang watercolors and some watercolor paper.

The next year I became a Girl Scout, but my heart was not really in it – except for earning my Art Badge. My favorite class in high school was elective art. Not only could I take it every year, the class met every day!  My senior year I came close to applying to Parson’s School of Design in New York. In the end, though, I opted for a journalism program. But visual art – and an unexplained underlying sense of design and balance in everything – has remained a basic element of my life.

For me art is a way of seeing and understanding, a way of thinking, and appreciating.  It is a way of giving, a way of expressing a feeling or idea when words fail. Some of my own art is in expected forms – drawing, painting, ceramics – but also in sewing, cooking, gardening, arranging flowers. Even in setting the dinner table and making the bed.

I have this advice in a small frame on my desk: “Make ART Every Day/Make Every Day ART. “

Often time runs out and I don’t live up to this maxim. But a lots of days, I do.