Bluebird Rules

©Theresa Grillo Laird - Canyon Trail - oil on canvas - 16x18
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When I joined the Campfire Girls as a 7 year old Bluebird, I was handed a 10 item list of Bluebird rules to memorize. Most of the rules didn't stick in mind, but the one that has always stayed with me is "Remember to finish what I begin".
As a patient and focused kid immersed in my own inner world, the rule mystified me. Why wouldn't I finish something I'd started?

Now, all these years later, that phrase has so many more meanings.

Remember to finish what I began for my life at 20? How easy it is to get off track with life's unexpected twists and turns! Some of those twists are opportunities. Some are deep canyons that you can spend years trying to find your way out of.

Remember to finish art projects that started with such enthusiasm only to feel like chores several months down the road? At that point, you need to pause to recall why you were so enthused about the project in the first place. Do the same reasons still apply but there were more obstacles than you expected? Or was the original impulse flawed from the start?

Remember to finish mastering that skill that you know you still need in your artist's toolbox? Well, daylight's burning! Get on with it!

Remember to finish walking the path you began on that feeds your soul and makes you eager for what each day will bring?
Sometimes it's beneficial to stop long enough to take stock, and remember where you were heading before all those beckoning side paths opened up before you. If your beginning still has any meaning, discard any accumulated baggage that's impeding your progress. Simplify everything down to your one personal most basic thing, and remember to finish what you began.

How about you? Do you need to remember what to finish? Or even what not to begin?

Not Just for Children

©Theresa Grillo Laird - Pensacola Pass - 14x18- oil on stretched linen
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Painting in the National Park all day in solitary union with the elements, is like being a kid again when your only business was to play and take in the impressions of your world. Maybe that's why I keep being reminded of the early incidents that pointed the direction to the future...

I looked up the hill towards the evening sun. The summer- tall weeds and wildflowers were lit up with golden halos. Alive to every tiny detail surrounding the dilapidated sand box I sat on, I leaned against the gray wood of a fence post, my eyes tracing a weathered crack in the grain.
I glanced at my dad who was in conversation with his sister and her husband. I was aware that they had forgotten about me and that was the way I liked it. I was still young enough to be sent off to bed if they'd remembered I was there. So I sat quietly and took in the show of light that enveloped everything.The hour was dazzling, saturated with a haze of warm colors and lengthening shadows. Everywhere was gold, red, yellow and faded green, shimmering in the heat. Against all the color, the weather-worn fence post stripped of it's bark, glowed like platinum. I sensed I was experiencing a moment I would always remember, a moment different from all the other moments.
Over the years, I've been gifted with more of these ultra-real moments both in waking reality and in my dream world.  They're the atoms of the impulse to create. The artist's job is to illuminate the wonder of these moments by finding the way to transpose them to concrete form. I can't think of a better job to have!