Wanting More

Detail from work in progress

I enjoyed observing my two granddaughters this weekend, two beautiful girls having a delightful time with each other. The younger, only seventeen months old,  was enamored with the older, five years. I witnessed a distinct tacit desire in the younger to have all the accomplishments, size and abilities of the older. Not a new concept. Younger siblings, cousins and peers provide a great deal of stimulation and motivation to want to speak well and run like the wind.

As I observed Luna's longing and fascination with her older cousin's natural talents, I saw myself as an artist. What I deem valid and important to my work and growth is inspired by someone else. I am engaged with the consideration that I am no more than a seventeen month child. And being that child is, yes, frustrating for the moment, for all that I erroneously think that I cannot do, yet simultaneously wondrous. Wanting more is unending and revitalizing and universal. We are born with it and are driven by it our entire lives.

Wanting to paint with a consistent unremitting grace is what I aspire to. My granddaughters' day of play reminded me of my human nature. Personalizing it, I see that my desires to express an artist's passion effortlessly is both already here, and yet forever out of my reach. Monet stated it most poetically, "I would like to paint the way a bird sings".