Happy Weekend After Thanksgiving friends. It seems we are enduring an endless Black Friday this year with Black Friday this and that advertised the entire month of November!
Today is
Small Business Saturday
I hope that you find the time to shop in person or online at the small business of an artist of some kind today. Several years ago we stopped exchanging Christmas gifts with most of our family and friends. We still get a few gifts for our grandchildren but that’s all.
“Not all are called to be artists in the specific sense of the term. Yet, as Genesis has it, all men and women are entrusted with the task of crafting their own life: in a certain sense, they are to make of it a work of art, a masterpiece.”
―
I make small photo calendars each year to give to my kids and their partners. But otherwise I’ve stopped buying gifts for them. We all have everything we need. And it seems selfish and irresponsible to buy stuff simply for the sake of “giving gifts.”
This year I chose two artists (one local, one a woman that I met a few years ago) and purchased a few small items to give to friends and loved ones. That’s it for my Christmas shopping. I’m done already!
If you can, support a small local business or artist today. It means so much to them in these days of Amazon Prime and Big Box Stores. Chose art for art’s sake.
More Paintings
Today I’m sharing my latest watercolor paintings. I’ve now completed 35 of the 100 paintings I decided that I would make — a little over a third of the way to my goal.
It’s interesting where this process is taking me. Though each one is different, I’m learning what moves me and what I care about. Slowly, slowly I am learning new things.
“And you have treasures hidden within you—extraordinary treasures—and so do I, and so does everyone around us. And bringing those treasures to light takes work and faith and focus and courage and hours of devotion, and the clock is ticking, and the world is spinning, and we simply do not have time anymore to think so small.”
― Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear
The journey is the thing. I have no ultimate destination in mind with my paintings other than to sit down and paint because I’m drawn to do so.
Is there something creative that you want to try? If not now, when?
May you walk in beauty.
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