Art and creativity are everywhere. Whether you are a Witter Springs grass hay farmer like me or you are doing something else, you are creative. There is an exotic bird that lines its nest with bits of colored stones and pebbles to attract a mate. The more beautiful his art expression, the sooner will his lady love come flying to his nest.
A zoo keeper reported an unusual chimpanzee. The animal had found and kept, always close beside him in his cage, a peculiarly shaped stone. The creature, not far removed on the tree of life from humans with 99 percent the same DNA, had found a piece of stone it considered to be “art.” He kept it close like some treasure. He held the stone, played with it and slept with the stone beside him in his nest. For the small ape that piece of granite was something beautiful and wonderful.
These creatures recognized the beautiful pebbles and stones for what they were. The chimp’s love and care for his stone for that branch of our ancestors, was a first dawning awareness of art appreciation; a recognition of the vital need for art in our lives.
Artist’s creativity is not unique. An April 2015 edition of the Record-Bee published an article about a local woman, Linda Marshbanks, a hairdresser for 35 years.
She told Jennifer Gruenke, a reporter, “I do lots of things. I paint furniture, I paint lamps, I paint whatever I see… I look at something and I think, what can I do with that?”
I have walked the isles of the Louvre and the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art. I was a painter (not much of one) and I studied enough at the university to gain some appreciation of what makes “art.” Jennifer’s work ranks right along with anyone you might name for what make an interesting work of art. It had good color, composition and imagination. Her paintings of the “Blue Bird of Happiness” on a wine barrel and her design for the Kelseyville Pear Festival were beautiful.
A 17-year-old Lower Lake student, Rikki Will-Markgraf, has been writing for years. She has written books of poetry, science fiction, and children’s stories. She is working on her sixth book.
That week the musical, Jesus Christ Superstar, was on stage at the local theater in Lakeport. The week before, the songs of Neil Diamond were performed by another Lake County singer. Two weeks earlier, an accomplished female singer, guitarist and keyboard artist, performed Nat King Cole’s songs in Upper Lake at the Blue Wing Restaurant in Upper Lake. Lake County has a symphony orchestra, several bands, song writers and musicians of all kinds. The spirit of creativity is in all of us. No matter who you are or what you do that flame burns. It is a universal quality with which we are born.
Yet, creativity is a fragile thing. It is easy to kill. Look at a child’s first drawings and paintings. You will see it there. Only when we force that small person to “color between the lines” and stifle the creative spirit do we sometimes succeed in damaging or inhibit that expression.
Whether expressed in a painting or a building, a poem or a design on a wine barrel, the spirit of creativity, the desire to create something new and wonderful, burns in every mother’s son and daughter… not just the painters and poets. Whoever you are, if you are worth your salt as a human, you are creative.
Gene Paleno is an author and illustrator living in Witter Springs.
