Harvest

CienerProfusion2LowRes

 

If I look back over this year as if my life were a field that should produce a crop, it appears at first glance to be spare and thin. Surgery in June and its aftermath, from which I’m still recovering, makes me think the bumper crop will be sparse this year and for good reason.

Yet I’ve been looking through my sketchbooks and artwork I’ve made this year in preparation for my upcoming Art Show at Southwinds Gallery. Last year’s show was an epic event that should have proved to me that much rain and storms often yield a bounteous crop! I’ve been marveling, once again, as I prepare for this show, that indeed there has been a profusion of art growing from these fields of creativity I tend. It is humbling. It is head-scratching. How? How has this happened in the midst of what has felt like turmoil?

I really don’t know the answer to that. All I know is that what I thought would be a sparse harvest, actually looks much like the drawing above, made at the Ciener Botanical Gardens this fall…a profusion of color, flora and fauna springing out of much rain and not a few storms.

I’m grateful. This is an understatement. Gratitude to my heavenly Father who is bringing me through a year of difficulty, all the while having planted and sowed such beauty along the way. As I flip through my sketchbooks and look at the pile of knitting and crochet wrought this year, I’m humbled at how I’ve been allowed to create despite the churned soil and wretched storms.

CienerLiliesLowRes

It occurs to me, as it has in the past, that each and every drawing I make, is a chronicling of something I’m grateful for. It is putting down on paper, a visual recounting, of what I find beautiful in my life. Wow…there really is A LOT that is beautiful. And I don’t often realize this truth unless I stop and view the harvest.

It is my hope that this post does not seem self-congratulating in any way. Oh dear, it really could be perceived in that light. My intention is to confess to you that my natural tendency is to view my life as meager, sparse, UNDERwhelming, UNexciting, and thin. I realize time and time again, that this gift of art could quite possibly have been granted me for no other reason than to reveal to ME the breath-catching beauty that is all around me in my life no matter the circumstances…to show ME that the yield of a life is not measured in huge accomplishments but in the day to day small things that add up to a satisfying harvest. This is a lesson I seem to have to learn over and over and over again. Truly humbling.

This makes me excited about the art show this year! Especially since I get to share it with my dear friend and fellow artist Debbie Schiappa! She and I have, for a few years now, drawn together on Friday mornings in and around Kernersville. We will be showcasing some of our drawings and paintings of our town along with other artworks of various kinds. Saturday, November 22nd from 4-7 will be a wonderful day to view just some of the harvest from each of our year’s crop. I would love for you to join us there!!

It will truly be a harvest celebration!

0 thoughts on “Harvest

  1. Kristy says:

    Your message came through to me exactly the way you intended, I think. And now I have one more reason to keep on “making” — to anchor my sense of gratitude. Gratitude for the beauty I see, for hands that can hold a pen or brush, and for the bountiful materials I have available.

  2. freebirdsings says:

    You’ve gotten a whole lot more done than I have! You are such an inspiration. I think it’s great you get to share your year of art making with your friend as a show together! I would so love to see it. Perhaps we all view our lives as sparse. I know I tend too. We all know the super people out there who do all those wonderful BIG things and then we think we don’t measure up. I guess I have to tell myself what I tell my husband when he says most people are just followers and not leaders. I tell him the world can’t work with all leaders. And it certainly can’t work if we all only do BIG things. We know how much a simple hello is to us on a down day. Or to make that sketch of something in your house or yard knowing it won’t ever be considered a Michaelangelo status work but we are having fun and happy none the less. I think the world works well with a mix of big and little things. Good luck at your show and hope you have a happy time with it.

Leave a Reply to jenpedwards Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *