KIDS INSPIRE EVEN A SET-IN-HER-WAYS ARTIST

Aug 03, 2020

    Having a child at 30 instead of 22 made me "think" I was a better mom, but it wasn't until my daughter turned 30 that she decided I might have been OK at mothering.
    She had her first baby.
    When I became a grandmother at 60, my paintings really changed. They were lighter and full of the world.
    Now that I'm called Gram by three, my paintings are happy, happier and happiest! Or maybe they are just to me.
    I see flowers to pick, grass to roll in and rain to drip on my tongue. I watch the squirrels try to pelt me with pecans from overhead, and the birds ignore me completely even though I imagine they are talking to me. 
    Two of the three grands visited last week. They live long distance, and Covid has kept them at home till now and way out of hug reach.
    Days at Gram's house included (as always) lots of painting and colorful mess. Playing with new techniques (or new to them), mixing pigments to make the muddiest of tones, and discovering application tools beyond the brush...all of these open to only a child's possibilities.
    At home, they are used to creating. They've made a robot out of training wheels and a paper towel tube. They've organized their own detective agency whose leader is 8 and the youngest spy has not even finished potty training.
    At Gram's, their imaginations soar on the canvas: bright colors, huge overlapping shapes and rainbows...always rainbows. And they paint quickly without an ounce of hesitation and immediately are ready to start a new one. Oh to be that fearless again!