The loss of an artist and teacher from childhood has caused me to reflect upon not only her life and work, but also those lessons that she taught me. The myriad distractions of daily life, from the constant need to earn money for survival to the many mundane chores and tasks required to keep it all going can combine at times to make us temporarily lose our focus in art-making. Remembering the passion a teacher found in fine art painting and how she worked to instill that passion in her students has helped to reconnect me with the roots of my own passion for art-making.

I love my Honda Fit. And while that may seem to have nothing to do with art, actually, it does.

You see, I drive my Honda Fit everywhere and in the process of its being used it gets dusty, the tires see wear, the interior windows next to where my Toddler sits get coated with whatever sticky stuff she’s got on her hands and smears onto the glass. (I know. I don’t want to know much more than that, either.)

Too often we do things not because they are right for our particular situation, or because we are grown ups and can use the words “want to” without sounding like recalcitrant toddlers, but because we have this vague idea that others–who know more than we do–expect certain behavior.

Workshops are great little animals; my own Norwegian artist, regularly teaches them, and his students, depending upon why they are there and how they approach the opportunity, move forward in widely divergent fashions.