Eating Peaches

The other day I was looking through an old sketchbook of my grandma’s, and I found a wee little oil painting tucked away inside. It was a still life of a vase of flowers that she had created – about a 3″x5″ piece. It made me think about all of the art pieces I’ve lugged around from move to move since college. A lot of them are in a huge monstrosity of a portfolio that features a not-so-convenient handle on one side only. After a few moves my brother-in-law Paul would refuse to carry it, as it weighs a ton. Some of my larger work is in wrapped in plastic with duct tape, which has held up remarkably well during each move. A few more are in heavy-duty paper envelopes.

What I was mainly thinking about was what would happen to those pieces after I die. Not morbidly thinking about death, but curious as to the future burden I might be passing to my kids. I’ve got a few of my grandma’s paintings and art books – not sure what happened to all the rest. I’m sure my mom and aunt have a lot. I’d always hung on to all of my work, with delusions of grandeur that I would someday be as famous as Picasso and every piece within would be worth thousands, if not millions! (Hey, I guess I still kind of have that dream, but it’s probably more that I am a packrat.)

So…what to do about all of these pieces? I was looking through them a few weeks ago, and found several that I still like that were quite good. Others that looked to be a rush for a school project deadline. What I need to do with them is get them into some sort of decent storage system. Kind of like a flat file storage I’m thinking. I then would probably like to start digitally archiving them, and post them on here. I think I could probably sell some of them, but it’s weird to think of selling something that I’ve had for so long. For some reason the longer I’ve had something, the harder it is to let go.

That wee little painting I found? I gave it to my five year old daughter, a great artist in the making. She put it up in her room on her art carousel container. I’ll bet her great-grandma is looking down and smiling at that. It’s pretty cool to have something that’s been hidden for so long bring joy.