Artistic outlets take MANY forms

 I am primarily a visual artist.  That gives me a LOT of wiggle room!  Paints, colored pencils, pastels, collage, sculpture...every medium offers new challenges and rewards.

But my maternal grandmother was one of the greatest artists I ever knew.  As far as I know, she never drew, never held a paintbrush, never had any kind of art instruction.  But she created beauty in a dreary, drab world!

"Her Only Vanity"--a painting  of my grandmother's flower garden.  

She was one of a large family, married as a young teen, immediately began raising a large family of her own.  In rural Louisiana during the depression, the world was a dismal place.  Simply surviving took nearly every ounce of energy a person had.  But she made time to tend the most beautiful flower garden to be found for miles.  People would stop in the road and ask to take a picture.  She always had beautiful flowers in bloom, and in back always had fruits and vegetables growing in abundance.  And she crocheted, and sewed beautiful quilts from scrap fabric.  She did not simply survive--she created.  And she passed that creative drive on to many descendants, including me.

I cannot always put in time in my studio.  But instead if mowing a lawn in Louisiana's unbearable summer heat, I have turned the entire lawn into mulched beds.  I scavenged bricks for free to create winding paths through what was once flat grass that required a haircut at least once a week.

  I mixed perennials and annuals, planted flowers, veggies, and herbs, threw in a couple of scavenged trellises and statues...now my yard requires much less maintenance.  And we get a good deal of food out of it!  That garden us a constantly growing, changing art project in itself. And it is a creative outlet for me year round as well!

I think my grandmother sees it and smiles down in me when passers-by stop to look.  I share produce with my neighbors.  I have even given spare plants to complete strangers who stopped by to comment.  I am sharing my gift in multiple ways, and she always did the same.  My world is not affluent.  I will never be featured in a magazine.  But I am creating something unique. And am teaching MY granddaughter in it. 

Because the need to create is very strong in our family; we all begin to feel stagnant without some outlet for it in our lives.