Sunday, September 21, 2014

Wisdom from an 8 Year Old

"You can't erase the past, but you can create a beautiful future."                   ~Michal Madison 
                       


                                                                                     

Wisdom from an 8 Year Old

 

I love Paije. She walked into my booth last Memorial Day weekend, when I was displaying my paintings at Art in the Park. Her mom and little bother were with her. I watched as she moved slowly from painting to painting, taking them all, as if she were memorizing each face, each brush stroke, deep inside her. She’s just eight, but the past two years have brought pain that is overwhelming. She doesn’t have a dad. She used to have a dad… but things changed. She's learned early that bad things happen and life goes on. Sometime we feel as if left us in the wake, trying to stay afloat.


 Soon after we met, I started teaching her art lessons. She wanted to learn how to draw eyes and faces. (I couldn’t say “No” to that!”) She soak everything up like a dry thirsty sponge. Our plan is that she draws me one of the things that we are working on together at class,  and the rest of the week, she can draw whatever she wants, whatever her soul desires.

This past week she brought this drawing to me titled “Tears of Time”.

If you look closely you can see words, emotions, filling the iris. She’s also started writing something that goes with her art as well. She liked that I did that on my website and Facebook. (She’s one of my most avid fans via her mum’s account.)

 Here are her words:
     The tears of time keep falling and falling from looking in the past.
     All of the sad memories that have found her heart and eyes and soul.
     The tears will fall until she falls asleep.
     Then she will forget for the night.
     And the tears of time will come back and it won’t stop.
     But she can stop it.
     She knows with God and her family, she can get through this.
                                                                         ~Paije, age 8, September 2014

Art heals. Art helps us deal with the chaos that is going on inside, the stuff that doesn't make sense. I love being part of that process in a child’s life. Paije’s favorite painting of mine is “Shadow’s of the Past” (at top). I understand why. She has a print to remind her that, while we can’t make the bad stuff that has happened to us disappear, we can focus on the good stuff, on the light, on what is going right in our lives today. That is where we find hope to carry on, hope to get through the pain, the loss, the heartache. Paije realizes the gift of being surrounded by people who truly love her. The strength that comes from having Creator in her life.

Today, I hope you find the joy and beauty that are around you, the gifts that are in your life, the strength that carries you forward.
Surrounding yourself with art helps. Here’s where you can purchase mine:
www.MichalMadisonArt.com. Ten percent of every sale is donated to Childhelp so that children who have been through extremely hard times can find hope. Thank you for buying my art and being a part of making Hope Happen!

Exquisite Blessings,
~Michal Madison

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