Art and About
Engaging with the creative force in everyday life

At my last posting, I was agonizing over the definition of art and my own hypocrisy regarding that definition. In my cliff hanger ending to my column, I was staring at two blank canvases thinking that my art, or any art created by my family, wouldn’t be good enough to justify displaying in prominent parts of the home. I am happy to report that one Saturday, I put one canvas in front of myself and one in front of my daughter and we just jumped in and made art. Neither of us knew where we were going to go with it, but as the day ticked by, we filled our canvases and both felt satisfied with the results. As with any good art relationship, I have come to enjoy the pieces we made more and more each day and I wonder why I ever felt stifled by the prospect of making them.

However, my feelings toward art purchased at Home Goods continued to plague me for months. Many times, Oprah has said that when the Universe wants to teach you something, it will keep sending you lessons until you learn it. The first lesson might feel like a pebble hitting you on the side of the head, but if you don’t learn from it, then the next lesson will feel more like a rock. It will escalate to a brick, a wall and so on until an entire metaphorical house falls on you, if that’s what it takes to get your attention.

Generally, I have found this to be true and it certainly was true regarding this art crisis. The barrage of lessons came over a number of weeks as I tried to creatively punch up our landscaping without spending a fortune on tearing up a crumbling patio or buying a lot of new plants. Once again, a solution blindsided me at Home Goods when I spotted two separate sculptures of metal frogs playing instruments. I immediately saw that I could build a little stage area off to one side of the yard and have the five frogs that comprised the sculptures serenading that corner of the garden — a fun and unexpected vignette to add a mini focal point within the middle of the hardscape.
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I haven’t posted in 5 months. At the last posting, I told you that I was involved in some personal artsy projects that were taking me away from my writing. This is true, but not a full disclosure.

We had some much-deferred maintenance in our backyard and pool area that couldn’t be deferred anymore. Coordinating contractors and pitching in to do much of the work ourselves was indeed time consuming. But this excuse was just a shield to hide behind while I pondered a personal art crisis that blind-sided me in February. Here is a column I wrote then and never posted due to my unresolved feelings. Next time, I will tell you how I came to a resolution over the past five months…

(Written February 29, 2008)
I’m having a personal art crisis. It is multifaceted. I am doubting the validity of commercial art, and I am doubting the validity of my own art. Both doubts go directly against the beliefs I espouse daily as a columnist, as a mother, and as a teacher. Both doubts stem from a need to put art into my house for the purposes of design.

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