THE OBJECT OF ART IS NOT TO MAKE SALEABLE PICTURES

We took the back road, past the cottage farms, and at the end of a gravel driveway, sat bunches of freshly cut rhubarb for sale. They sat glistening in the morning sun. I let out a sigh of glee and felt joy; that kind of child-like joy that comes from nostalgic moments of walking into a lolly shop with $2 in your pocket.

My daughter smiled at me and said, "You should be a vegetable photographer."
I laughed and said, "I know, right?"
Quickly followed by "but who would pay me for that?"

Instantly, I wished I didn't say the last sentence. I popped my bubble of joy with a needle of self-doubt. I was squashing my dream with doubts before it even had time to form, swiping it away because it felt silly to hear it out loud. I don't want to teach my kids this lesson, to swipe away their dreams, so I decided to share some of my ideas. She listened. I rambled. It felt good to acknowledge my dreams.

Since then, I have thought about this idea that we have to make money from our craft. And in this adult world, we have bills to pay and children to feed. I know all of that. But why do we let this hurdle be the first one we fall over? Why have we been taught to look at this endpoint as the reason to do something, or not do it? Rather than be guided by our child-like joy of play and curiosity.

We are squashing our creativity to make money rather than create with a whole heart. We are letting our own feelings fall to the bottom of the list and never see the light of sunshine, and then, in turn, wonder about the sameness of it all.

I stumble across these words by Sherwood Anderson in a letter to his son on Brain Pickings:
"Draw things that have some meaning to you. An apple, what does it mean? The object drawn doesn't matter so much.
It's what you feel about it, what it means to you.
A masterpiece could be made of a dish of turnips.
Draw, draw, hundreds of drawings.
Try to remain humble. Smartness kills everything.
The object of art is not to make salable pictures. It is to save yourself."

My rhubarb by the side of the road isn't about saleble art; it's how it makes me feel. It's the joy it brings me as I find a new vegetable to turn into a masterpiece, the subject of my art. It's about honouring me and listening to my intuition. The colours, the layers, the textures fill me with nostalgia, and memories that I can no longer remember. It's deep down, and the more I listen to it, the more I'm guided to play. I may never make a cent, yet I feel richer for it.