Friday, January 31, 2014

Some Warmth Amidst the Arctic Freeze


Usually I avoid Winter travel. But this month we slipped in between the cracks of the ongoing Arctic Freeze to celebrate a special birthday.

Happy 90th to the one who:
  • ·      Raised me to consider the “make it yourself” philosophy when desiring a mass-produced item. She, being an artist, also taught me to purchase from fellow artists.
  • ·      Teaches by example… how to nourish our temple and take care of ourselves using natural options, avoiding prescriptions, if at all possible.
  • ·      Shares a love of nature and art that makes every day a multi-sense-filled experience.

    • ·      Surrounded me with creativity, art, dance, music, health, healing and beauty when not all in the world supported those things
    •      Stocked up on our fave comic books when we kids were out of school, sick. Yes comic books! (Richie Rich, Archie and Jughead, Little Lotta, Wendy, Casper the friendly ghost, for me. Peanuts books, Mad Magazine, Superman, Batman, Green Lantern for my brother.) These all were a huge childhood influence to my drawing.  She also made little books with original stories and we were to draw the illustrations. Kinda makes one too busy having fun to realize they’re sick.
    •          Put meals on the table despite an exhausting/demanding University schedule and later a challenging Jr High Art Teacher’s career.
    •           Is currently appointed mayor of bird, squirrel and chipmunk city by the local wildlife. She keeps them well nourished, as she has done with her family.
    • ·       Is responsible for my knit addiction that started when she took me to learn to knit at a local knit shop in 1965!
    • ·      Created sweet little drawings and notes I’d find in my school lunches. I enjoyed that so much I did the same to my little girl's school lunches. I would not be surprised if that practice is passed down to future generations.




    • ·      Introduced me to kitties which turned into a life-long love.


    This list is far from done. I know I’ll wake up in the middle of the night often and wish I added more to this list.



    Happy Birthday, Mom!  Thank you for being such a creative, artsy influence! I hope your birthday wish comes true!

    2 comments:

    Tiffany said...

    I can see the influences are carried through you onto me too. The lunch note tradition is one of my favorites.

    TiCo said...

    It was one of my favorites too. It feels like a pretty paper visit from someone who cares. I hope you take your awesome creativity and carry on the family tradition!