Art in my Family

My brother's artistic talent was not known until he directed an art project in high school.  A mural of the history of Greeley was painted on the school's cafeteria wall. My parents had no idea he was artistic until an article about the mural appeared in the local newspaper. He graduated and served his stint in the Army and when he came home he pursued his art career.  While working at a Boulder ad agency he won an award for the work he did for The Sobriety, Sarsaparilla and Sandwich Shoppe, in Larimer Square. He moved to Los Angeles and worked as a commercial artist for a few years.  His intention was to move to New York City and be there for about four years and then return to Colorado.  He never returned to his home state but continued living in New York until his recent move to Boston, MA.  He is now retired.


















My son's creativeness came out in pottery.  In high school he pulled straight A's in art class and his instructor told me, "your son can become a great potter." He won a contest in Jefferson County Schools and the large pot he had created was sold to the House of Green. I would drive to the store and drag my friends to show them the beautiful pot and his first sale. He worked on his pottery until he realized that he had to earn more money and left his creativeness to get a "real" job.  My house has many of his pottery and I often wonder if he will return to working with clay and become a famous potter!

My daughter began by painting, moved to music, learned the guitar, wrote songs, sang, and then began creating beautiful gourd art.  When I would compliment her on any of her many talents, she would say, "Anyone can do anything they set their mind to do!"  I know this is true but I firmly believe there has to be a talent connected to the wish! Her work can be seen on her blog, http://barbaramhallman.blogspot.com

      

My guess would have been that some of the creativeness came from my father.  He is the one that got me interested in photography and reading. When I was around seven years old he gave me my first Brownie camera. He explained the position of the sun, shadows and distance when taking a picture. He loved to read and would take me to the library and we would both check out books. He could do anything--plumbing, electrical, or mechanical. He enjoyed Popular Mechanics and working on  projects from the magazine. We never called anyone to repair our car, or fix a leak, or build kitchen cabinets, or put in a shower, etc. because he did it all. One of his talents was gardening and we aways had a variety of fresh vegetables.

I asked my father, who I always thought had a talent for drawing crude cartoons, where he thought the artistic talents came from in our family.  He didn't hesitate as he responded, "Your mother." That was strange because I never saw my mother draw anything and she never seemed interested in art. He continued, "she could look at something and draw it exactly the same.  It amazed me to see her do that because I have never seen anyone else do it."
 
Who knows if artistic talent is learned or is passed down through genes--I just enjoy looking at the art my children and my brother have created.

It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see.

Henry David Thoreau