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dear duck-huntin, truck-drivin, blue-collar, good old boy pals of mine,
My wife has been working this week.
Yes, I'm sure you would like to question the truth to all this, but try it once. Just try to be chosen as one of the top trap and skeet shooters in the Eastern US. Just try to rebuild a transmission with your own tools in another town with a clock ticking in your ear. Just try to find the perfect fishing cove and pull out an eight-pound largemouth with all your peers watching. Just try to write a redneck joke on the spot and have Jeff Foxworthy grade your accomplishment.
The only thing that would make that different than what Kathie is doing this week? She sees it all as opportunity to fall more deeply in love with what she loves.
We just returned from the Callaway Garden's Collector's Preview Reception, where ticketed art enthusiasts enjoy the unveiling of the works from thirty professional painters, some watercolor but mostly oil. Each submit three paintings for judging and up to six backups to replace in case one sells. You get the drift... it's a simple pleasure and privilege for Kathie to simply be here as an artist, but guess what?
She received Honorable Mention tonight (which sounds a little like "sorry chump", but it's not that at all!!!). What an honor to have the director for the Georgia Museum of Art select Kathie's oil painting from such beautiful works!
Midday Blush
8x16, Oil on Linen
dear kay and evelyn,
Just a mile east of Pine Mountain, Georgia (your state), stands a woman with one foot in beauty and one foot in insanity. With logging trucks whizzing by way too fast and way too close, she answers her life's call to paint screaming... Buddy, turn the car around! (Trust me, there is no moving an artist who is moved). We return to the "only spot" she insists. How about fifteen more feet into the field and away from the Daytona Motor Speedway, I suggest.
Not the same, she says.
So as she paints, I increasingly funnel more Our Fathers and Hail Marys upward
What a woman.
dear cindy,
As I watch your sister (my wife) here at Callaway Gardens this week, I realize my favorite thing about her... she WANTS to grow! At breakfast this morning she said those very words. Not "I'm disappointed with what I've painted". Or, "I'd like some recognition". Or, "I don't belong here". Instead,
I want to grow.
As you know, she picked up the brush and palette only four years ago now that we are empty-nesting. If it were me, my patience would have worn thin about two years ago, my entitlements would have kicked in by now, and my desire would not be for maturity but for attention. Maybe that's why God gave her this gift of patience coupled with creativity. Within her there is a settled-ness, and it leads me.
This morning I dropped Kathie off at the Callaway vans. Each artist is to be paired with another and dropped off at a local home & garden for an all day paint. As they mingled this morning I was reminded of dropping our daughter off for summer church camp (the only time that ever happened). Everyone was uneasily mingling together. A few knew each other from previous encounters. One guy was showing off his art cart. Another brough his terrier.
But there was a genuineness in the air. A realness that doesn't show itself too often in other circles which I run.
I left her in good hands, I thought.
More folks with that patient creativity I need.
I think they are called Artists.
dear marcia,
You would be very proud of Kathie. It is you she speaks of when thinking on her art days at the University of Tennessee now some thirty-three years later. I'm just learning to be proud... of her mess.
Oil paints.
Guarenteed to ruin good clothing. Promised to spread like a bad virus if accidentally touched too often. Pledged to stain your skin and show up in an unspected place tomorrow. A certified bad idea.
Until...
I sit and watch her.
And hope she ruins every stitch of clothing she owns.
dear tuesday painters,
I’m discovering that most of you artists work better when you have fewer resources. At least that’s the way it is for Kathie. I remember the day we drove to Cade’s Cove in the Smokies for an evening paint, only to discover that she left her palette at home. With a few tubes in her backpack and the flat, glass-like surface of a CD case for mixing (found in the car floorboard), she forged ahead. It seems that the creativity it took to get set up primed her inspiration pump.
Artists need very little, if anything… with the exception of Space.
Callaway Gardens is a manicured and babied land of gardens. I'll bet the entire season of Spring is birthed here before spreading across the remaining states. New Green. Black Dirt. Non-Stop bird song. It’s breathtaking… and a little too perfect.
Our interior senses are more inclined toward Process, Unfolding and Not-Quite-Yet. So, with floppy blue hat and a brush clinched between her teeth, Kathie motions me toward the property’s working vegetable garden, a wide expanse of slow but active production.
This week I’ll read and write a bit, but my prime job is to be her Sherpa. Hauling art supplies from car to designated spot of the moment. She can do it all, but she likes me and gives me the job. Yet, being a Sherpa is more about creating space or, better said, getting out of the way. We’ve had countless discussions (I’d rather not say arguments in this letter) about my knack for subtly pushing her to begin. I forget about the space thing easily. I’m a slow learner.
But a Sherpa’s most important work has nothing to do with manual labor. A Sherpa’s most important work is this: Don’t miss the moment.
So often service impedes my ability to mature, to ripen. Paradoxically, I can preoccupy myself with being available so much that it weakens my ability to be truly available in the moment. Missing the opportunity to live out of a centered place within myself can actually extract the beautiful gift of space.
Obviously this is not an exclusive lesson for the spouses of artists. It’s actually a call for me to be me… an artist too. And here is another discover I am making: Artists love artists.
Be who you is, cuz if you ain’t who you is, you is who you ain’t.
dear roger,
My wife, Kathie, attended your painting workshop last September, because she was jumping into her life, what she would admit to be "her calling"... to be an Artist.
Over those four days of painting outdoors and guiding the already talented small group, you said two quite impactful comments to her. 1) After watching her paint for only an hour or two, you said, "So, when are you going to start doing this full time?" 2) Toward the end of the workshop - "It's time for you to enter Plein Air Competitions". A good friend of mine is fond of saying, you spoke Words pregnant with life.
Tomorrow is Kathie's first competition.
We leave in the morning for Georgia's Callaway Gardens annual Plein Air Paint Out where you won second place last year. She's not going with the idea of award, but to stretch into this calling you helped envision. Yes, there might be more exposure and certainly some comaraderie with others who had to compete just to be selected... but the hope lies in the jump.
I'm sure you can remember the nervous anticipation of your first one. Five straight days of painting. Time constraints. Maybe bad weather. People watching, interrupting with their comments. The final night's art show and sale. Am I good enough to be with these other talented painters? And these are just my thoughts! There is no telling what's happening in Kathie!
What courage she has. And what desire... to be a woman alive to the presence of God in her!
Kathie purchased this little sign yesterday in Asheville and placed it in the window above the kitchen sink when we got home. Tomorrow we go to her River.
Peace to you,
Buddy
