Mom's garden, 2009
Other than yearly trips to Florida, most of my young childhood was spent in my hometown exploring trees, meadows, snow, wildflowers, ponds, and cornfields. It was enough to drive a half hour to visit family members and enter their homes, their yards, their creative worlds. That was travel.
I grew up in a big family with four children. I was the family artist for as long as I can remember. How did I become an artist? Perhaps there was some talent. But I think it had more to do with the people in my life who, all in their own way, saw the world as their canvas. And how witnessing them live their expressive lives affected and inspired me.
The adults in my life were creative people. My aunts were artists. Two of them sewed beautifully, and made things by hand, one painted on canvas, another painted on velvet. My father and uncle refinished antiques -- wood furniture, tools, boxes, -- often found by the side of the road, often under layers of paint, new treasures to discover.
And then there was my mother. Somehow she set up our home to be lived in and comfortable, yet also a work of art, her work of art. She decorated the house beautifully with antiques and handmade items. She had incredible flower gardens. One room in our house was filled with over twenty plants and flowers. My mom sewed clothes for us, for our dolls, and she was always getting me craft projects to work on with her. Holidays were a time to make decorations. Birthdays were a time to make gifts and cards. The birth of a new baby gave reason to learn to make a doll.
My maternal grandmother crocheted, made crafts, and every year we got handmade gifts from her for Christmas. My maternal grandfather built complex machines with gears and levers from his bare hands, and a dollhouse and balance beam for me. My other grandmother painted china plates with flowers, so delicately. My paternal grandfather grew flowers. Peonies were his favorite. Here he was, a stoic German man, but he loved his pink peonies. They were his pride and joy.
I saw all the things these adults made and would marvel at their skills and the beauty that resulted. I noticed the way the light came in, filtered, from a newly sewn lace curtain and the color of the stain on the wood. I knew the difference between cherry and maple and birch, probably by age ten. I liked the feeling and look of beautiful things. I suppose I developed a sense of taste at a young age. But I never went to an art museum as a child. I didn't need to.
My grandparents lived a few hours from us, but close enough that we would visit for holidays and even weekends. These drives from Upstate New York to the small town of Bradford in the southern tip of Pennsylvania were my first trips, my first travel. I remember looking out the window throughout the four seasons, and seeing the landscape change. There were new blossoms in the spring, lakes in the summer, the golden colors of autumn, and sparkling white snow in winter. And each place, our town and my grandparent's town, had a life, a vibration, a spirit that was different from the other.
My grandparents lived nestled against mountains. Their home was in a rural neighborhood, and even though they lived in a more remote town than us, their neighborhood was bigger than ours, so that world was huge to my young mind. Their town had rolling green hills dotted with Queen Anne's lace, long peaceful country roads, a charming downtown, a country club with a beautiful golf course, lots of John Deere tractors, and a Zippo factory. Native American reservations were nearby, they always intrigued and mystified me, as did the local orphanage, housed in an old Victorian. It was all so different than Upstate New York, and "different" was expansive.
When I was quite young my grandmother gave me a craft project to do that she had gotten in the mail. She saw how much I loved it and from that time onward every time we visited there was a new project just for me to create. She would take me to her ceramics studio and let me pick out a tiny figurine to paint. I thought I was in Heaven. It was our special thing, me and my grandma.
The kind things that adults do for you when you are a child, where they see something in you and encourage it, become part of you. If you are lucky, you are nourished by the best possible people. Your family.
Good adults reflect back to kids their potential. I was one of the lucky ones. The adults around me saw the artist in me and a fire was lit that never burned out.
