Featured Friday: Paint It Yellow

Aloha Friday and happy Christmas Adam! (If Christmas Eve is the day before Christmas, than “Christmas Adam” is the day before the day before Christmas… I crack myself up…)

As you may recall, last week we started something called “Featured Friday” here on This Darling Adventure. It is pretty awesome because I get to give someone else the chance to shine for the day. This Featured Friday we get to feature someone very special to me: my mother, Kate. So without further adieu, here we go!

Hello everyone, my name is Kate and I am Laura’s mom. When Laura asked me to talk about creativity and the act of creating beauty in the world around us, my mind instantly jumped back to a time when I was a young girl. I did not grow up in a house with crayons, paints and colored pencils, but I have always known I thrived on creativity. When I was in my early teens, I decided to create something. I was fascinated by the knots of trees and wanted to put them to good use. My mission was to use the knots of trees to create a mobile of sorts. I hung the knots on some string I found and then modge podged some pictures of surfers on the pieces of wood. It was really something and I was so proud. My uncle was around our house at the time and he took a look at my creation. I overheard him say to my parents, “She’s very creative!” No one had ever said that before about me. It was the first time my creative side was recognized and affirmed by someone else.

As I got older, I moved out and had a place of my own. I decorated it with very contemporary and modern furnishings. I even had a cactus instead of a Christmas tree one year just because I could! There were pops of blue and red contrasted by chic black and glass furniture.

When I got married, I moved into an entirely different scene: white walls and antique wood furniture. This was a stark contrast to my funky apartment before. We were on the bottom floor of our condominium, so there was only a little sunlight that found its way into our home. As someone who grew up in a house with a huge window that presented me everyday with a view of the Pacific Ocean, I found out very quickly how much I actually needed sunlight and beauty. 

So I decided to make my own sunshine. After talking it through with my husband, I wanted to paint an accent wall in our dining room a fun, vibrant yellow. That one painted wall put sunlight into my world. It grew on my husband little by little and more than anything, it grew in me a desire to embrace my artistic and creative side.

When I found out I was pregnant, it was no surprise that this desire to create beautiful things bubbled up again. (Think the “travel bug” but with art!) The juices were flowing as I soaked up inspiration from things around me. All I could envision for the walls of our nursery was some form of “splat art” in primary colors. I gathered some paint swatches and tried it out. It looked fantastic, but needed something else. So I experimented with finger painting on the walls as well. The colorful nursery was perfect for our firstborn.

Through these experiences, I learned that art is an expression on the inside that needs to come out. It was no longer just a “hobby” but something that I actually needed to do. Beauty, art and creativity. I needed them. I needed to paint! The box was now open to color in my life and gave me permission in a way to be a child again – to paint and be creative. And I’ve continued to embrace my creativity ever since.

The thing is, though, you don’t have to wait for permission to be artistic or to be creative all the years that I did. We are ALL creative. We just do things differently sometimes. Art and crafts is not about perfection. It is not about using pencils and then erasing mistakes when they happen. It is about letting your creativity run wild. In art, you cannot make “mistakes.” It is messy. What is beautiful to you may not be the most beautiful thing to someone else and that is okay. “They’re not following the rules,” you may say. But explore the possibility of breaking those rules and seeing what happens. Do not set your paint brushes down. Do not throw away those sketch pads. Who are you creating beauty for anyway? Be creative and fill your life with yellow accent walls.

-Momma Kate

Thank you again for joining our adventure today! As always, it is so good for you to be here. Please feel free to comment below! It is an absolute pleasure to hear from you. 🙂

Have an absolutely awesome weekend! 🙂