When I was in tenth grade at Jefferson Senior High School, I was getting A’s in all of my classes, even math. I loved my English classes, composition, literature, all of it. I loved art and history. I didn’t have the same feeling for math. So when the teacher would say, “show your work,” I wanted to draw a picture of me laying on my bedroom floor crying into an open math book — but I guess that’s not what he meant. Apparently he didn’t understand my struggles because he asked if I wanted to join the math club. There was a club for this torture? No, I assured him that I didn’t want to join.

Every kid questions something in school – “I’ll never use this!!” they claim. (And truth be told, they aren’t always wrong.) But I have to admit that I do use something I learned in all of those required math courses — I learned the value of doing the work, even when I didn’t love it, and most importantly the value of showing my work.

I wasn’t sure what I wanted to “become” in college. I knew I loved writing, and I knew I loved art. But what would I do with that? I didn’t really want to become a professor, and I had no examples, in my circle of people, living creative lives. So at first I tried advertising. That seemed to put some of my skills to use, but I didn’t feel the love – I wasn’t crying on the bedroom floor, but sometimes kneeling…

It all made sense when I combined the two. I started telling stories with each painting. Sometimes a phrase, a word, and even full stories. I began “showing the work.” Each painting was not just the colors, but the life lived behind each color. And that’s what people seemed to gravitate to – the story – the work.

I don’t know why we have to go through all of the things we do. It doesn’t always seem fair, and I’m not sure I believe “there is a reason for everything…” – that maybe is too simple. But I do believe this — we will each spend our time on the floor, questioning, crying, but if we get up — show ourselves that we can in fact do it! — show others that we have in fact done it! — then there is more than just the lesson learned, there is the lesson lived! In my humbly educated opinion, I’d have to say, that is art at its most beautiful!