from the mind and heart
of children's author
Barbara Jean Hicks
I've been thinking this morning about how we become storytellers, artists, musicians, poets. Is it nature or nurture? Are we born with gifts for art, or are we born as a clean slate but lucky enough to have had someone--or several someones--introduce us to art and encourage our artistic expression?
The answer, it seems to me, has to be both. I believe that everyone is born with the capacity for artistic expression. We can't help but notice how free a child with a box of crayons is, how unique and expressive the work he produces in his play. As we grow, we find different tools to express our inner creativity--a pencil, a paintbrush, a keyboard, a rolling pin, a garden hoe, a sewing machine, a hammer and saw.
Or we don't. We abandon our crayons and never pick up another, or wait decades before we try again. So much depends on parents, teachers, partners, friends. People in our lives who encourage and nurture us.
I was lucky enough to be born to parents who encouraged artistic expression. My siblings and I were introduced early to books, music, art. We were provided with paper and pencil, paintboxes, musical instruments and free time to explore. We are writers, musicians, builders, crafters, creative thinkers as a result of this early nurturing.
Today I honor my mother, Charlotte, a woman who saw the potential in every thing and every one, including her children; who read to us and gave us crayons and paint and paper, flutes and trombones and trumpets; who led by example, singing and painting and sewing and crafting; who nurtured her children's creative and intellectual endeavors and encouraged us to express ourselves through the work of our hands and hearts.
Who was it who nurtured your own artistic expression? Give thanks, today, for all the people along your creative path who kept you there, who guided you, encouraged you, honored you. Be grateful that those encouragers and nurturers who have, perhaps, left a hole in your life when their bodies failed will never leave a hole in your heart because they are always with you in spirit. They are in every story you tell, every painting you paint, every song you sing.
Honor them today as they have honored you on your creative journey.
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