<Sunday, June 22nd, 2008> [Amy]
Life as art
Thanks to everyone who's been complimentary of my artwork and/or supportive of my education plans. It's incredibly validating to hear friends and family say things like "you undervalue your talent". Not only is it a huge boost to my ego, it makes me feel like I'm on the right track.
I couldn't get motivated to do a drawing last night, despite having a great subject picked out--our ukelele. Then I realized that I'd already expressed myself in other ways yesterday. I shopped for perennials for the garden (lamb's ears, stella d'oro daylilies, walker's low nepeta), and created a new recipe for dinner: salmon in a white wine beurre blanc with fresh thyme from our garden. I'd exhausted my creative impulse.
It got me thinking about the various ways V and I express ourselves here at home. Our yard and our house, both inside and out, look like no other on our street--or that I've seen, for that matter. V has really knocked himself out on the kitchen remodel, and the new room has quickly become our favorite in the house. It seems he is constantly tearing out cabinets, installing light fixtures, upgrading plumbing, assembling furniture, and reworking layout and flow.
The garden is my domain, and I've planted over 300 plants, 100+ varieties, in a dozen beds around the yard. We've got a vegetable and herb garden, a butterfly garden, a rose border, a woodland shade garden, and an orchard. The herbs are the most rewarding plants for me, because I also use them in cooking. As vegetarians, we need all the flavor and fresh ingredients we can get.
What I got from my time at FCI was the basic culinary skillset to create good dishes from scratch without recipes. I'm not a health food nazi, by any stretch, but I do "shop the perimeter" of the grocery store, avoiding prepared/preserved/packaged foods. An unexpected side benefit of this approach to meal preparation is that the girls think that cooking is fun, and are always eager to help. More importantly, they're willing to try any dish they've had a hand in preparing.
In short, I'm proud of the fact that we manage to find opportunities for creative self-expression in our daily lives. But I also realize that, at least for me, creativity is a finite resource. If I ever want to make a living doing art, I'll have to ration my creative impulses, and save some for my work.
.:.
Some of my cooking endeavors go by the title serandipity and mostly taste fairly good. NJR
-- (2008.06.22) |
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