The Ginger Ale Bottle

Are you old enough to remember when carbonated soda came in refundable quart glass bottles? I think I was about in sixth grade when we had to bring one of those bottles to school for an art project. That memory from years ago is still sharply etched in my very left brain mind. After covering the bottle with plaster of Paris (no nickle refund for me) it was ready to be painted with an analogous color scheme. I remember that I was so totally engrossed with my decorating, and still recall that my selected colors were red, orange and yellow. You can imagine my surprise when I finally looked up and then around to the ginger ale bottles that were being painted by the others around me. I think it was at that moment that I realized my art was a little different. My colors and designs were wild and my bottle was totally immersed in them. I wasn't necessarily thinking it was good or anything. I just knew that my bottle was looking very different. Actually, I don't think that I yet had the vocabulary capability to articulate what I was experiencing. You can expose children to art and you can even teach a lot about it in school but you can't force it. I recall that a lot of my classmates did not enjoy Art Class at all and I could never really understand that.

I didn't choose art as a career for a myriad of reasons. Primarily, I didn't think I was "that good" and had heard all about the starving artist. Secondly, I'm pretty sure that "Artist" wasn't considered by my parents to be a real profession. However, I never wanted art to be work for me. I can only go along with the art critic stuff so far and I know what I like and enjoy on a very experiential level. I am grateful that I can continue to plot my art projects for fun and share my quirky cards with friends without stressing too much about whether my work has enough appeal to be considered a real success.

The painting of the flowers above (are they African Daisies or Sunflowers? don't really know) was a fairly quick and fun splash for a greeting card . Funny how I realize that my penchant for those colors endured after all those decades.