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High tide fishing on the Point...barely room for the rods and chair.  Beach erosion has cut into the dunes behind, but left a nice little shelf of sand to enjoy. A brush with a hurricane last year created a quick flowing breach from the marsh to the ocean.  Not a safe place to swim, but a great place to fish, as the tidal exchange brings nutrients to and from the marsh.  Eventually it will fill in, as sand is swept down the coast, but for now, it provides a quiet place to put a line in the water, and to escape the crowded beach.

Painted this work the day of the death of Lewis Grizzard, the Georgia writer for the Atlanta Journal/Constitution, and author of a yearly collection of essays with comical titles. I stood in line at Rich's department store many a time to get that yearly autographed copy. I grew to adulthood/motherhood reading Lewis' column, and he wrote about the South and how it was growing up here, and what was changing. He loved good barbecue and hated wearing socks.  He was a rascal and a black sheep, but we loved him anyway.  He loved University of Georgia, and it was said that some of his ashes are scattered at the 50 yard line, though we don't know for sure (wink).  I've visited his official grave in Moreland, GA, and walked through his small museum up the street. I wept when his heart gave out, just like the other Southerners who knew him, too.  He'd always had a bad ticker, and had dodged a few close calls with death, but I think this time, he knew his time was running out. When I found his last column in a drawer the other day, wherein he was asking for folks to pray (and they did), it prompted me to pull out this beautiful watercolor from those years ago...still vibrant, still beautiful. I had never really tried to sell it...so much emotion and memory in it, even now.  I sat at the work table in my studio, working on the painting, tears falling - there are probably some mixed in the watercolor.  He had lived his life to the fullest, as should we all.  Thank you, Lewis, wherever you are.  Throw a stick for that dog, Catfish, to chase, and I'll look for you when my time comes.  I wonder if they'll have barbecue.....

Going through the old files, and found this piece....so many good things going on in it!!  It was a time of experimentation, a time of intense learning, and making art for the sake of creating.  I had just been to a week of instruction with a challenging instructor (bless him, I learned so much!) and I had all the time in the world to haunt the studio, trying this and that, and learning to trust myself as an artist.  

Jump forward eighteen years, and in many ways, I've come a long way.  As I have focused my marketing, and art creation to fit it, I had forgotten how much FUN I had just exploring.  Don't we all need to simply relax and remember why we wanted to be artists in the beginning?  Grateful for this happenstance -- seeing some work that makes me smile, remembering the drafty studio where I could sit at the window and just dream, sitting at a folding table in the middle of the room, artwork before me.  Tossing fishfood down to the koi in the pond below the window.  Wondering if I would ever find a way to be profitable.  

Well, I found a way, and I love it.  But there is a reason this fell beneath my eye today...a subtle reminder to set time aside to play.  Will be making time for that more often, with this reminder!