I have never been a very creative person. I do not do crafts or artwork that require drawing or painting, even though I have tried. It all comes out abstract. In elementary school, I had an art teacher that was more interested in the final product than the process and I never developed an interest in art.
For those of you who know me, know I am a professional photographer and love taking photos of nature. I always say my husband is the true artist, as he creates his art and I just take pictures of God’s work.
To give you an example of how I felt about art when I met my husband Jerry, all my friends were asking him to draw them something. He felt bad that he was drawing for everyone else and not me. He asked me what I would like and I said “I really don’t care.” My walls in my barracks were bare, as I wasn't really into art or even hanging pictures on the wall.
Well, he drew a jackass. It still hangs in our bedroom as a reminder of my interest in art back then (and maybe how stubborn I am.)
Over the years, thanks to my husband, I have learned to love art and we have several pieces in our home from several different artists. Our home has been described as walking into an art museum. Quite a change from when I first met Jerry.
Thursday night, I went to the Ann Simpson Artmobile Open House hosted by the Platte Valley Arts Council.
Sarita Talusani Keller, the Artmobile director, gave the group a couple of assignments. Now I had the advantage over all the other people in the room - I had witnessed what she had done with the students earlier last week and had written an article about it for the Saratoga Sun. I was amazed when I heard what the 1st grade students saw in one particular drawing, because I didn’t see all that they saw.
Thursday night, Keller had us study the art we were interested in for four minutes. Then she had us write words to describe the piece in one minute. That is when my right brain kicked in. My left brain just sat in my head, dormant.
I drew exactly what I saw and I wrote what I saw. Funny thing is, I didn’t even write down the colors, as I was so focused on the symbols in the art piece.
Lori Kostur, my neighbor and a very talented artist, had a completely different concept of the same piece. Hers was a more personal and artistic approach.
That is when I truly realized how right-brained I was. I can drive around and find beauty in almost anything and I enjoy taking photographs and sharing them. Some are lucky shots, some are thought out and planned, but it is nature - it is not me creating something from scratch.
My artist friends can create beautiful sculptures, paintings, clothing, quilts and so much more and I am so appreciative of their work and how it makes my home look inviting.
Even in my writing, I am very right-brained. I have a hard time creating beautiful, flowing sentences to describe something - I just report what I see and hear and make a story out of it. After writing the facts, I go in later and add things that pop into my brain or Josh and D’Ron give me suggestions to improve the article.
There is nothing wrong with being a right-brained person, but I have always felt like I didn’t have the creative mind the rest of my family does. My husband is a stone sculptor - who continues to amaze me after 39 years. My oldest son, Josh, is a wonderful writer and has a creative flair that I can only hope to have, and my youngest son, Garry, writes thought-provoking lyrics that makes me think “how did he come up with that.”
I do realize it is ok to be right-brained - as we need that A-type personality to look at numbers and figure out how to make sense of them, or to write the facts in a story.
I get compliments on “my” stories, but really, they are someone else’s stories. I just share what I learn with the readers.
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