Try it anyways!

Hard to Handle 20 x 16 Oil
$400 plus S/H

It has been a long and hectic week and I am now just returning to the studio. While I throughly enjoyed the past week I am extremely glad it is done!! The kids showed their animals and lifeskills projects, brought home ribbons and crashed in bed for some well deserved rest.

I helped out at the wool booth and really enjoyed talking to the people who dropped by to watch me spin or needle felt. I was amazed at the number of folks who were intrigued by the spinning wheel and I actually snagged a few into trying out this old art form.

As a society we have become so cut off from our history and we specialize in one thing. If technology were to end, quite shortly the people of Earth would be running around naked. Trust me, as a society, we should make sure that never happens! LOL My daughter walked her lamb around and many people were able to touch a sheep for the first time. It was quite interesting to see the faces of people as they touched and felt not only a living creature but one capable of clothing them and I swear you could see the loss in their eyes. They understood how little they knew about the value of history and the ability to create.

Creation is not something that should be left in museums to be viewed by tours of school children but should be something that is interactive and valued. My son learned this week how to spin wool. All it took was a few hours and he created his own skein of wool. The amount of teenagers that stopped by to watch amazed and thrilled me. Kids that could normally encourage a respectable individual to cross the street in order to avoid breathing the same air were asking politely how, what and why. They left with many offerings of "Thanks dude/mam".

People want to learn. We are all capable yet there are barriers. Why are there barriers to learning? Why does everyone have to learn the exact same thing in the exact same way during the exact same time period? Why is the different scorned and ridiculed while the average and mundane is crammed down our throats?

The painting today made me think about these things. It was a difficult piece to work on. It is a very extreme in your face sort of piece that makes you wonder "who's" Hard to Handle? There is so much gear on this horse. All he wants to do is race. It is what he is bred for but it appears that he is at a different level than those around him. Maybe he is a World Champion in his heart but he is being "molded" into a racehorse. Sounds like one and the same goal doesn't it?

I beg to differ. I think we are all capable of being great at something but the restraints placed on society is counter productive. Someone created a formula that says it should be done one way. Any deviation is wrong and must be punished. I think that is why this piece was so hard to do. I had to take a close look at how one achieves greatness/creation and I didn't like the formula.

Several women dropped by the booth and one actually sat down to spin. All three mentioned they had a spinning wheel at home and had always wanted to learn. Now they felt like they could try. That is all people want, they want permission to try.

Why is it that so many people say no? I think they must be the formula makers. I think they should be fired. What about you?