My grandmother was an amazing oil painter.
Her house was like an art gallery.
The old wood-paneled walls held another world’s portal to forests, and mountains, and quiet streams.
My favorite paintings of hers, though, was one we had hanging in our own kitchen of a cabin in the woods at dusk by a little sparkling creek.
It had a tiny light you could actually turn on in the cabin, and that always felt magical to me.
When I think of my childhood home, I think so often of looking at that cabin. It sparked imagination, creativity, and escape.
I credit that cabin for teaching me about the way that true art makes you FEEL something.
That cabin was like a gift to me.
Today I am working on a new Christmas painting based off of another one I’d seen.
The first time I laid my eyes on it, it made me cry unexpectedly, evoking thoughts of my own four girls when they were smaller, more innocent.
I knew, in my heart, that painting was special.
Even though it was simple, it had a power to touch something deep inside.
It was memory, and longing.
It was the sound of laughter, and the hope of something warm waiting after a long day.
These paintings were more than canvas and paint.
Art is much much more than just a picture to see.
Art isn’t about the canvas; It’s what happens inside you.
The treasure in making it goes far beyond just what the eye sees.
This morning in my prayer time I prayed something that I pray often, and that is that God would use the things I do, stand for, and say to reach into someone out there who needs it,
and to give them some feeling they need.
Whether it’s to feel safe, or seen, or understood, less awkward, or less lonely.
Maybe hope, or that they have someone with whom they can grieve.
Today I am contemplating how our lives can be out art, and I hope mine inspires just like that little cabin with the light on one day.
Mom Outnumbered
Hi! My name is Kerri Green; Wife to Justin, and mother to four highly entertaining daughters -Alena, Chloe, Tessa, and Paige. I am an artist, a writer, a daycare provider, a lover of people, a believer that there is humor and beauty in all things, and the author of Mom Outnumbered; a blog about real family life, and my observations of it. My goal is to make people laugh, to be there for them when they cry, and most importantly, to let them know that they are not at all alone in this up and down world. I live with my family in Sebastopol California, and I am opening the window into our life. So welcome! Come in. Sit down. Just please don’t mind the mysterious wet spots.
