I was given this unique piece of artwork a couple of years ago. I had recently started dating her son and we had personally met, though she lived over a thousand miles away. She mailed it to him to give to me. Maybe I had impressed her as the type of someone who might like a piece of her personally hand made artwork? A work of art that she had personally made.
The first home my ex and I had purchased was a 700sf war box in West Seattle. Back in those days we didn't take photos of ourselves and our surroundings every step we took. Taking pictures happened when we remembered to bring the camera. Carrying around your Nikon like a purse wasn't the norm.
It was a cute little house that sat perched up off the street; there were 23 cracking concrete steps from the sidewalk up to the front door. Overgrown ferns & dark green vines cascaded down the five foot high concrete cinder block wall that held the hill up. It was what we could afford at the time and it had potential. Unfortunately, we didn’t have extra dough for “potential” and he wasn't very interested in that sort of thing anyway. What made me love this little castle was a little potting shed up in the back yard. It was the original She-Shed.
She was all of maybe eight feet wide by twelve feet deep. Her color was not the same as the house - unless you count the trim color and the mossy, greyish-black weather worn asphalt shingles on the roof. An old mullioned window was peeling its long ago fresh white paint. The door, with its rain spotted window, barely closed so it always remained somewhat open despite the typical Pacific Northwest weather. There was a narrow dirt path littered with pine needles and tree roots and 45 year old pine trees up the steep slope to where she was. The first time I walked in there were cobwebs right inside the doorway. To the left of the door was an old wooden topped workbench with a couple of typical ceramic pots sitting on it with dirt still surrounding them as if the potter had just left moments prior.
Artwork and photographs can be like the scattered pictures Barbra so exquisitely sings about. As suddenly as a flash from a bolt of lightning I was walking up that path with my paints, paper and pencils to just hang out and create. No laptop computer back then. Not even a cell phone. ( I know! Crazy, right?!) This amazing piece of art, that was gifted to me from someone I hardly knew, reminded me of all that and then made me think about all of the learning, reaching and growing I've done since then.
Happy for the memories, LOVE the artwork.
Realize that the best time is NOW!!
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