Celebrating Students and Counting Blessings

I used to think that in order to give a lasting contribution in this world, I needed to do something monumental, like end world poverty or cure a disease. I was reminded this week that perhaps my purpose in life is as simple as to create and spread joy. Maybe it's making someone else's life more fulfilling by showing them a skill that they can use to create and spread joy.

How blessed I have been to be able to take something that I love to do, spread paint on a canvas, and share it with other people who are eager to learn techniques and practices.

I started teaching early in my painting career because it gave me almost as much joy to create as to teach others to explore their own creativity. This past week, when I attended the 39^th and final year of the Heart of Ohio painting conference, I spent time with students and instructors, old friends and newly made friends. I was reminded about events I'd forgotten about and how small kindnesses reverberate long after one forgets they did them.

I'm sad that one important avenue of sharing is no longer available but glad to have experience it when I did. My very first ever conference class was at this show. I remember how excited and terrified I was, traveling to teach a full class how to paint a scene with a barn and some dairy cows. I just wanted to tell those poor 35 people everything I knew!

Maybe I overshared… I had a degree in dairy science,so out came the correct names of the different body parts and little known facts about mammary glands and milk production.  I remember one student commenting at the end of class that they hadn't expected an anatomy lesson along with the painting instruction. 

This week, we painted crows and pears. I didn't draw on any store of knowledge about ornithology or horticulture. We just talked about creating form and color properties and other painter appropriate things. They dodged a bullet and didn't even know it.

Times change, friends are lost and new ones take their place. Painting venues come and go. In the end what matters is that we spent time, encouraged someone new to our craft, and shared generously of our knowledge.

2007 with Robert Warren and Terry Brunner

Thanks for the memories Heart of Ohio Tole.

With much gratitude,

Lina