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!