The Little Prince

This is a 12″x16″ mixed media painting on paper covered canvas. The sides are 1.5″ deep and are painted red.
This painting is SOLD
“What makes the desert beautiful,” says the little prince, “is that somewhere it hides a well.”
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Even though it may feel like that the well has dried up, you must keep digging.

I have been feeling a little parched lately. (In the inspiration department). Coming off the tail of a show of 13 paintings, rather large ones, can do that, I guess. I should give myself a break.

Easier said than done.

The thing is, I am always worried about taking a break. Absence does not always make the heart grow fonder. Sometimes the longer we stay away, the harder it is to get back. I know this from experience and it frightens me.

I read a quote today from Erma Bombeck about how at the end of her life she wanted to be able to say that she had no talent left because she had used up every last bit she’d been given.
I like that.
I don’t want to waste my talent. I also don’t want to waste my life worrying about wasting my talent. I wish I could find a balance and I wish that I had the confidence to know that I will never stop painting again. Taking a break and stopping are very different. Picasso said, ‘Inspiration finds me when I am working’ but does that mean ‘painting’? Can I be filling that well and finding inspiration while I am cleaning the house or baking with the girls. I think that I can.
There are no rules.
(Except the ones I keep making up.)
( I can be very frustrating at times.)

Another thing that was on my mind was the death of Elizabeth Edwards.
As a mother I was reminded of how special each minute I spend with my children is. To look around and know that the home you made for your family, each little thing that you have picked out, each special touch, the way you fold a towel or stock a shelf could soon be absent of YOU, is sobering to say the least.

And I have been thinking of John Lennon too. I was a young girl when he was killed Dec 8, 1980, but now I am older than he was when he died. I’ve made it longer than he did in this world, that just seems crazy and so unfair.
No doubt, that man died talentless.

Sorry, I didn’t mean to write this post about three dead people (five, I guess if we count Picasso and Antoine de Saint-Exupéry).

On a more positive and less morbid note, here is another quote from ‘The Little Prince’:

“A single event can awaken within us a stranger totally unknown to us. To live is to be slowly born.”
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry