An Artist Blooms

An Original Watercolor by ZenMama

I was told I had the misfortune of being born into a non artistic family and therefore it wasn't by fault I couldn't color as well as my best friend, Donna.

I suck at Pictionary.

I've crocheted uneven scarves for every member of my family. I even attempted a doggy sweater but it was more of a doggy straight jacket.

I've "cast on" a knitting needle 45 times but couldn't knit or pearl to save my life.

My sewing endeavors are limited to a 1970's tube top I made in the 1970's. It came already formed to look like a tube top, I simply had to cut to size and sew one straight line. Nope!

When my friend's children were dressed in elaborate custom made Halloween costumes, my kids were ghosts and sad clowns who upon reflection, looked a lot like Heath Ledger's Joker.

I went through a craft phase in the 90's. I made early 90's floral creations in mauves and wedgewood blues with large raffeta bows and I attached them to wreaths and vines and hung them all over my early 90's house.

Today I gaze longingly upon my beautiful friends with their ceaseless talents to sew and quilt and make jewelry and decorate and live gilded lives. They inspire me to want to be something more.

It can't be true, this misfortune of my birth. My dad went through a jewelry making phase, followed by the painting years and ending with basket weaving. I wear his jewelry and have his paintings and baskets displayed in my home.

My writing has always been my offering to the world but it is not enough. My eyes are drawn to art and my recently awakened soul feels a need to splash color on a canvas and see if something creeps out of it in a serendipitous manner. So I offer you my first sketch with watercolor pencils. The paper I used is a tiny 5 inch square. It was enough. I had five pencils to work with and they were enough.

I am an artist and I am enough. It is called "Fifteen".