HeARTful of Thanks!

Happy Thanksgiving from the "wildlife" here in my studio to all of you!  May this be a day of reflection and joy in seeing all the ways that you have been blessed and provided for this year.  I am thankful for you and your appreciation of beauty and art, and for your support and encouragement.  Thank you all!!!

This past year has been a huge leap of faith for me.  I am grateful to my dear sister Robyn, her husband Ed, and my nieces Madeleine and Megan, and nephew Josh for encouraging me in so many ways and making it possible for me to focus on creating art full time.  This is what I have been able to produce since coming to Omaha:

I am grateful for the opportunity to work on art this year.  My skill level has a long way to go.  Sometimes I get frustrated at the slow pace of my learning and ability growth.  But I was reminded again yesterday that I need to be thankful for the abilities that I currently have, and to be glad that I am aware of need for growth.  That can only lead to further learning and improvement which will result in better art to offer the world.

Here's a great artists' poem to highlight a thankful spirit this Thanksgiving season (the word "pied" means multi-colored):

Pied Beauty

Glory be to God for dappled things---

For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;

For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;

Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches' wings;

Landscape plotted and pieced---fold, fallow, and plough;

And all trades, their gear and tackle and trim.

All things counter, original, spare, strange;

Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)

With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;

He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:

                                    Praise Him.

                                                                              --- Gerard Manley Hopkins

Be brave and courageous!