Mother's Day: An Open Letter to my mom

Mom,

thank you for letting me be me. I feel an inclination to create art even though it doesn't connect to the normal stream of societal wants. Even though it is still secondary...I create. I know I am not perfect by any means. I appreciate all that you do for me and that you nurtured me to create and have a fondness in art.

Not only did you birth me but you bore the construction of my heart.

I look back and remember waking up to you drawing me. We were in your bed,the one you've always had, the one four feet off the ground. I remember waking up and my eyes caught a glimpse of you peering at me. You looked a bit nervous as you tend to do and showed me what you had created. It was a sketch of me with my little awkward body. I felt that the drawing was how you saw me. How do you see me now?

At another time I remember telling you, "I will do what you could not. I will be an artist." How pompous I was to think I knew what "artist" meant. I still am pompous about the word "artist." Some days I still overly use it as if I know. I suppose we are only artists after the fact.

I was more in awe of your drawings than you may have known. I remember finding an old drawing you had done of Helios or Titan with his chariot in the sky. I touched the page without your knowledge, "my mom created this," I thought. Watching you draw was my fondest memory as a child and I still think of it often. If I have children one day I want them to think the same of me. Children, I think, realise this sort of thing. Art is not something that can be created by everyone, it is hard to transfer images with the mind. When the mind mishaps there is great beauty and this can be found in art.

When I was very young I remember drawing a transfer image of the Pharoah in an art class. I felt I had everything perfect except for the nose. I wonder if I had left the original nose how I would feel about it today. The idea of perfection as a child and what it means. To sit at a desk and erase over and over again to get it right.

I'm not sure we have talked about simpler thing in awhile. Do you still love the colour Teal?

anyhow this letter is a roundabout way of saying,
Thank You and I love you,
Your daughter,
Kelly Rae Burns