The Gift  

   I have, over the years, come to realize the special Gift that comes with the commitment to being an Artist.

   This Gift is the ability to perceive and experience on a deeper, more profound level than most of my fellow humans around me. It seems obvious enough that an Artist would of course, but I have only recently begun to realize how truly differently I experience things. I have always seen and felt a deeper relationship with the Natural World, but now I realize it encompasses everything and everyone I encounter and become involved with.

   I have long appreciated the Gift of being a Painter- to be able to translate what I see and feel onto a small window made of paint for other people to see and feel. But now I realize the greater Gift is that of being the Artist. The one who sees and feels on a soul-wrenching level. The one who sees into a bird’s heart and knows what he is feeling. The one who can feel the emotional intensity of the color of a flower or a bird’s feathers.

  In personal relationships, I have realized that I feel love on a deeper level, I feel the pain and loss of heartbreak and death on a deeper level. Curiously though, the painful experiences have left me with the ability to feel more, not less as would be expected. I have come to be grateful for that.

   Many people have perceived these gentle qualities in me as weakness and fragility. I recently asked a good friend if she saw me this way and she replied “Honey, you have survived as an Artist for 35 years, you are neither weak nor fragile.”

  I think that about sums it up for me!