A couple of years ago as Christmas approached, I was trying to figure out gifts for the girls’ grandparents, especially my parents who are long distance in Florida at this point. It struck me that something personal, something created by the girls would be a perfect option, and so I dove headlong into their recent creations at the time, and, as I did, I was struck all over again how incredibly talented these two teenagers of ours truly are. Trying to narrow down the artwork from my now 17-year-old was almost impossible while trying to sift through my 14-year-old’s creations that combine words and art in unique ways proved equally difficult.
As I worked on this project, I realized not for the first time how the talent these two demonstrate in their everyday artistic efforts truly takes my breath away. It has from a young age when their abilities first began shining through in their creativity and their way of looking at the world. I noticed often in our early unschooling days the way they pieced artwork together from mundane items to create something extraordinary and the results of their novel ways of combining seemingly ordinary homeschooling tools to create fascinating self portraits or drawing depths beyond their years.
My absolute delight and awe of their giftedness only grows with each passing year. For example, when Taylor Hawkins, the long-standing drummer of the Foo Fighters, died three years ago, my oldest teen created several pieces of Procreate art involving Hawkins as a dragon, one of her coolest go-tos when it comes to musicians, turning them into dragons. But perhaps the most stunning piece she produced came shortly after the Foos released their latest album with the track, The Glass, depicting Dave Grohl and Taylor Hawkins each on opposite sides of death’s glass separating them. It was both intense and beautiful, achingly beautiful.
But the options I included for the Christmas gift that year involved dragon renditions of country flags with a bit of unique flair that captured the country they represented. As for the 14 -year-old’s contribution, hers I drew from what I can only describe as inspirational word-based sketches—things like a girl swinging on a swing in a tree formed by sketching and words, words creating an idea tree. For as long as my memory can stretch with regard to what my youngest has created, there have been words that pierce me in heart and soul with their sheer depth of beauty.
Yesterday, I wrote about the artistic connections and collaborations my teenagers share and in that post I mentioned a poem my 14 year old had written and that my 16 year old had been invited to read. Because I have read some of my youngest’s wordsmithing, I was curious about the poem but respected that I was not included in the initial reading of it. Until yesterday. As my youngest teen and I baked cookies together as part of her sister’s birthday celebration, she mentioned the poem and intimated perhaps I could read it. When I finally got that opportunity (once the soft chocolate sugar cookies were done), I was as blown away as I expected to be. The word pictures were wonderful, achingly wonderful.
As I celebrate my birthday today, I count myself deeply blessed by these two incredible artists. This morning, my 17 year old gifted me a dragon sketch of me as a dragon and I could not be more thrilled to have (finally) been dragonafied. And yesterday I was privileged to read my 14 year old’s words that remind me of a story shared by Elizabeth Gilbert in her book, Big Magic, about the poet Ruth Stone. Stone described hearing a poem approaching her on the wind and how she raced ahead of it to grab pen and paper to scribble it down before it passed her by. My husband talked about watching our 14 year old tapping away at the keys of her Chromebook the night she wrote her poem, and immediately I was reminded of Stone. Do I think my two amazing teenagers have this esoteric gift of the big magic of creativity? Yes. Absolutely, yes. And I love that I get to watch the way that gift enriches not only their life but mine and so many others (eventually) as well.