I had to turn the lights off so that I wouldn't have to look at the spread of paints, brushes, paper, and supplies spread out all over the floor. My daughter has two big projects due at school. Both require some sort of visual display. She's decided to paint. I'm so proud of her that I don't want to say anything negative about it, but boy is it messy!

We are a family of artists. My husband's mother was an artist, so was her father. There is art running through my veins as well, though not as a profession. We were discouraged from 'frivolous careers'. But it never stopped us from doing it for fun. It's not much of a surprise that our kids are artists now.

We encouraged it from the time they were very small. All have taken at least one painting class. Their masterpieces grace my walls. It seems like not so very long ago that it was finger paint on my walls. This last child was especially zealous in her enthusiasm for 'coloring' our world. It was a bitter sweet moment when I finally painted over her 'work', especially one very tiny, very adorable little green footprint.

One favorite memory I have was when my older kids were very young. We'd gotten out the colored paper, scissors, and glue to make Valentine cards for all our loved ones. The kids cranked out card after card. Dozens of them! But no matter how much we prodded and prompted them to create something special for other people, every single card said "I Love Mommy". Hubby was a little bit peeved, but for me, it was one of my proudest moments!

Carving pumpkins became a fabulous family art fest. No awards, just good slimy fun! We used to do up the yard, too. We were using styrofoam as tombstones long before they came out with them commercially. Thinking up clever epitaphs was a family project. Costumes were a challenge I enjoyed tackling before my kids got old enough to do it themselves. With lots of kids, I got very good at using more creativity than money.

The first Halloween we spent in Oregon was certainly memorable. I'd worked for days on a paper mache alien brain for one of my sons, complete with bulgy brows and veins running through it. I grew up in California, where I cannot recall a single rainy October 31, so I wasn't prepared for what the Oregon coast could dish out. Well, at least he made it most of the way through the school day before his head turned to soggy pulp.

Wanting to capture moments for later inspiration I took lots of pictures of my kids throughout their childhood. Spurred on by a pastel class at church, I decided to do at least one artistic rendition of each of my kids in pastels. It was really hard to find the time to do that in the midst of a busy family life but I did it. It took sever all nighters over a period of months to get them all done. It was time well spent though, cuz I just love my little pictures of them.

Later, when the kids were in High School plays, I took over where my son left off and became the unofficial set painter. I've done similar things for church. I wish I had pictures of some of my murals. I was so busy trying to paint them, and keep all the other balls in the air, (and probably dropping more than a few), I never got around to taking a single photograph. Oh well. Those were the good ol' days!

But they were also days of tables overflowing with the project of the hour, day, week. And because we were so prolific in our creative production, and so sentimental, it was hard to find places to put everything. One day my friend offered us free storage space in the basement of her barn. Very happily I packed up boxes of the stuff and put them there. Our house was much freer. Sadly, that was the year of the hundred year flood. Everything ended up as mush.

While dredging up supplies I'd practically forgotten about, my daughter asked me why I don't do art anymore. I had no answer, at least not one I wanted to burden my 14yo daughter with. Half jokingly I told her "I paint houses now." But that's only half the story. I think I used to see the world in much brighter hues. If I do any art, that's what I want to shine through. But I'm not feeling it right now. Hopefully I will again.

In the meantime, my daughter produced a beautiful colorful painting of the Buddha. Then she went to bed, leaving everything strewn about. (Like mother like daughter?) She's assured me that she will clean it all up after she does a picture of a black hole tomorrow. OK. I suppose I can live with the mess of her art for a weekend. My kids have sure had to live with mine!