Celebrating art

Our little town was a showcase for art yesterday and today -- sponsored by the arts organization in which I am involved -- and from all observations and reports, it was "fabulous." We had more than 100 artists involved in 23 venues, and a small group of resilient volunteers who worked like mules to make it happen. And *I* was one of the exhibiting artists! Our photo club's works were displayed on the walk, and it was exhilarating to see my photos up on that wall.

Creativity, in whatever form, feeds the soul and the heart. It expands the mind and keeps us sharp and *alive.* One of our older artists was demonstrating pencil drawing, a medium she has only recently learned after painting in oils for many years. And what incredible detail she'd pulled out of a simple set of colored pencils! Another long-time artist and talented photographer exhibited a photo she'd enhanced after attending a workshop on Photoshop Elements and learning about layers. It was her creative soul that saw the vision, but I loved that she had just learned the technique from one of our photo club workshops.

Creativity encourages us to find unique elements in ordinary objects or supplies. Cooking, for instance, can be such a creative art form, and yet most ingredients are readily available in most groceries. It's how you blend them, how you shape them, that makes the end result a creative work of art.

In that respect, I guess each of us is a creative work of art, with ourselves the artists. Out of ordinary humanity, we become unique individuals, shaped by circumstance and our reactions to joy, sorrow, pain, trouble, pleasure, etc. Our inherent gifts help determine the results, of course, but as with any artistic endeavor, it is the vision that drives the creation. And as the potter can throw the clay back onto the wheel to be reshaped or the artist gessoes over a canvas to begin again, so can we smooth out our lumps, wash out our false starts, and reform, re-create who we are into who we want to become.