Where there is art, there is...

Have you heard of Maud Lewis?  She was a woman who was born with a disability in the early 1900s and ended up living in isolation and poverty in rural Nova Scotia.  She and her husband lived in a tiny house where she became famous for her quirky, child like drawings of the natural world and the world she knew growing up. She painted on the back of old Christmas cards, and breadboxes and chairs and even her own tiny little house.  Even when she was living, she drew people from miles around to check out her art and marvel at the beauty she had created in the woods. Years later, those simple paintings ended up in museums and are worth many, many times more money than she ever saw in her lifetime.  She is now famous and her little house is in the Art Gallery of NS.  Every time I see her work, I think how bland and non-descript most objects are in my life.  She took it upon herself to create colour where there was none and her spirit lives on in that endeavour.

She is an inspiration to me.  She reminds me that art can mean survival and surviving can mean thriving.  Time for me to go paint a door or an old cereal box or...