Tuesday, December 8, 2009

There is art in everything...

I love glass ornaments. The old fashion, molded, hand painted kind. For awhile they were hard to find but now I see them everywhere. One of our Christmas traditions is to purchase a glass ornament that represents something about each person's life for that year. I still have all of mine from my childhood. My favorite is the lady with the violin. I got that one when I was 4 or 5 and was learning to play the violin. There is something about the shine, the delicacy of the glass, the sound they make when they brush against the needles of the tree, that just means Christmas like nothing else.


Last week I went through my mom's Chrismas decorations that had been left up in the attic. Something I wasn't ready to do, until this year. She has been physically gone for 17 years, but she lives on every day in my heart. I miss her so, especially at Christmas, which was her favorite holiday. Going through those boxes was more than I could handle, until this year. For some reason I felt ready this time...and what treasures I found! Lovely old glass ball ornaments and lots of felt! My mom was the queen of felt! She made her own tree skirt out of felt. She decorated the decoys all over our house with felt hats and scarves, they looked as if they belonged on a Charles Dickens pond! Our advent calendar...made out of felt of course. I had forgotten about the felt. So many memories. It also made me think about where I get my need to create, my ability to look at something and and see many uses for it, my eye for design...I definitely owe her my gratitude for showing me how to think outside of the box, that there is art in everything and that everything we do with a loving heart is art. She was never published, never had an art show with her name on it...but she was an artist in so many ways. She decorated our lives with drawings on lunch bags, dapper felt hats on geese, and daily laughter. I think I will include some felt in my next mixed media piece and my swan decoy is currently wearing her felt hat and scarf...it's good to carry on traditions!

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