It's a Family Affair

This article was originally written for the Northern Sun News on August 20th, 2014. 

My sister sculpted this cake! 

I, on the other hand, prefer to work two-dimensionally. 

It’s a little known fact that my creative abilities are actually a family affair, passed down to me from both of my parents and possibly generations before. My sister and I are pretty handy with our hands; me more on the two dimensional level where as Teresa is a sculptor of cake. (How does one actually take eggs, sugar, butter and flour and make it look like a pirate’s ship anyway?!!! It’s a mystery to me. Just like physics is magic. Metal flying through the air? Magic, I tell you. )  You probably would easily surmise that my father gave me my love for the outdoors; instilling a passion for the beauty of nature right from the very beginning. It is because of his keen eye that I was able to see the delicate unfurling of the fiddlehead into a fern, or the natural polished sheen of an agate on the beaches of Lake Superior. Then he would take these natural found objects home and slice them with his massive rock cutter or pummel little pebbles around in his rock tumbler to make funky 70’s style jewelry for Teresa and me. He’s a tinkerer and so am I.

My mom on the other hand is a bit quieter in her artistic nudgings.  She always seemed to have the popsicle sticks that we needed, or the pipe cleaners, the glue or the seashells. We didn’t have an art supply cupboard that I know of; they were just there when we needed them….magically. And she would quietly take ceramics classes and come home with a cotton ball holder that was blasted with vibrant colours, dripping off the edges of the porcelain, or the most brilliant green frog that one could ever stuff an SOS scouring pad into. She would also bring us home small Christmas ornament molds and we’d quietly sit at the dining room table and paint them on a cold winter day. She taught me how to be a patient artist.

 My mom was the one that was always asked to make the posters for upcoming tea socials and she’d fret about using the right picture and placing the lettering on the page just so. She had an eye for graphic design and I watched her work. I was impressed with the job she had been given and learned that it was very important to be a community artist and that a lot of time and effort was invested into the visuals that surrounded us on a regular basis.

And she too had an eye for beauty that was instilled in my sister and I. Every time the Avon catalog came out, there would be figurines for sale that strategically held a canister of perfume in them; cleverly hidden in the body of a bird or the skirt of a fair maiden. My mom would allow us to pick one. Teresa was collecting whimsical figurines and I was collecting a glass menagerie. I loved the way the sunlight would shine through the coloured glass of these little creatures. (But let’s be honest; the perfume stunk! “Sweet Honesty” honestly stinks.) I learned to appreciate the small things.

And when I went off to university, my mom was my biggest supporter. I would wrack up the long distance phone bills talking about my ideas and the different art supplies that I was discovering. I brought home my portfolio of work on weekends or holidays to show off my wares. I will never forget my mother oohing and aaahing over what she thought was a landscape, drawn with charcoal. She asked if she could have it framed. I was confused. “Mom”, I said, “That is a woman’s butt!” The close up drawing that I had done of a nude woman had been transformed into a beautiful scape of soft flowing dunes in her eyes and after she had pointed it out to me, I could see it too. On that day, my mother taught me that there was more than one way to view the world.

But the piece de resistance was a painting of a vase of flowers that my mother created. Every time I mention it to her she laughs it off and says, “Oh, that silly thing. It was nothing.” But to me, it was everything. I can’t even remember what it looks like now. I just know it was on a big piece of paper, and it was exploding with colour and texture and I couldn’t wait to be able to do the same. My mom was an artist and I proudly hung that painting up on my bedroom wall. Darn! I wish I knew where that painting ended up, but I guess it doesn’t even matter because it’s what the painting did that matters. Through that painting my mom showed me that we are all artists, and we all have the ability to fill our homes with beautiful images that bring us serenity or happiness. She showed me that you don’t have to be big, and loud and boisterous but your art can be. She showed me through her quiet, humble creativity how to be an artist.

Thank you, Mom. I love you. Happy birthday.