Memories

Shepherd, Soft Pastel... On my twelfth birthday, my grandfather gave me a collection of my first "real" art supplies. Never doing anything halfway, he went to a local art store to have a professional choose the best materials: a selection of nice brushes, a set of watercolors in tubes and in a pan, acrylic paint, oil paint, canvases, papers, a set of drawing pencils, erasers, and a large box of pastels. With that gift, I moved from the childhood world of drawing cartoon characters with a #2 pencil to exploring the world of fine art. Years later, after I had painted and sketched the days away, I finally picked up the untouched box of pastels. But what to draw? It was my sophomore year of college, and I had recently returned from a Jan-term trip to Jordan and Syria (where, incidentally, I met my husband, a fellow student). There were so many new memories forever burned into my mind, but one stood out, and still does to this day: standing atop a golden ridge, looking out as the amber sun set over the Dead Sea, viewing the Bedouin caves from above, and spotting a flock of goats and sheep with their robed shepherd in the valley below. It was a beautiful moment, rich in color, that became the subject of my first pastel drawing with my first set of pastels. I have drawn it several times since, and it has become a repeated special request from my grandmother. The image has been altered as my hand has gathered new techniques and greater knowledge over the years, but here is a version from today, commissioned as a gift, sitting atop the greatest treasures of my much-expanded collection of art supplies: my Sennelier Soft Pastels.

Good Things

Good Things, Ink Sketch...Sitting at the desk in our room is a collection of "good things": old books from my grandparents' house, a brass key from Romania, a piece of pottery made by my husband filled with Iona marble from Scotland, a Byzantine coin framed in a brass ring...an assortment of curious objects, a unique collection, simple objects that make me happy. I love collections. My family and I aspire to live more simply, with a small home consistently purged of excess. Still having too much, we try to keep taking steps in the direction of less. I find the words of William Morris drift to mind, "Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful." This sketch shows a small collection of things I believe to be beautiful; beautiful for the meanings they hold in my mind, for their age, for their history, for the memories. (The perfectionist in me is having a hard time with these sketches. I'm drawing with only a pen, so the pictures show every mark I make, whether I like them or not! )