The Sweetness of Summer Discoveries

It’s as if when the sun comes out we give ourselves permission to take off the layers, mentally and physically.  Having grown up in a precise Swiss household with competitive sports and structured Royal Conservatory piano as my escape, I have found some of my greatest gifts of insight as an adult have come when I have been able to stretch outside the structure of self limiting paradigms.

I had the opportunity to attend a painting workshop last weekend.  It was intended to be conducted at a friend’s cabin in Point Roberts with the instructor coming from Canada, but the border guard had a different take on how things would unfold for us that day!  The instructor was turned back at the Point Roberts entry point into the United States and the six excited participants that were awaiting her arrival had to bundle up their gear and trek back across the border.

Once back in Canada, we went in search of a location to paint for the day.  We found an amazing beach that took us in, and shared her shoreline with us.  One of the things that continues to take my breath away in this lifetime is how different each of us interprets the very same information.  Six painters in process looked at the same bouquet of flowers on the beach, and there were six very different paintings created,  each one speaking for the artist.  I was thrilled to find that my painting actually resembled the flower I was attempting to paint.  Now you need to understand that the art world is by no means under any threat by me picking up a paint brush, but the experience effortlessly took me outside of myself and into new possibilities with the stroke of a brush.

Is there something sweet that you can open to this summer to find possibilities that are lingering within you?