Gavos Conservator Fine Arts

When I was just six years old, I was given the privilege of visiting my first museum and seeing great paintings. The day was glorious and ended with the awareness that my life had changed forever.

After touring the galleries with my classmates, we were given the gift of witnessing a painting come alive before our very eyes. I remember well sitting on the floor cross legged in the front row. A tall, handsome man appeared with a beret on his head and spoke very clearly: "Good morning. I am an artist, too." I was knocked over with a soft feather. And then he began to paint the most beautiful picture I had ever seen.

The painter worked very fast with big fat brushes stroking thick scoops of color paint on the white canvas surface. Before very long the picture took shape. He was drawing me in beyond my years, into a vivid adventure far in the future. A wonderful looking sailboat appeared. The sailcloth vessel was on the high seas, with gigantic waves all around it. The sky was yearning for more and more wind. In my imagination I was sailing the boat to a magical island of peace and pleasure. These images were frozen in time and in my active mind.

At that moment, knowing little of art and nothing of the world, I made my promise.

I was knocked over again with a second feather when we were all given tubes of watercolor paint and brushes. The artist told us it was dream paint, not available in stores, and we could paint our dreams with it. My tube contained blue paint.

Afterwards we were taken to the children's museum and were allowed to use our paints. The teacher handed me a book on birds and I was mesmerized by the picture of the bluejay. I copied the whole thing on my piece of paper. It was so good the teacher got very excited and held it up for the whole class to see. Then she put it upon the board. Everyone was praising it and saying how good it was, and my heart opened with joy.

Later I realized that I had had my first one man show. When the going gets tough, which it always does when you choose the life of an artist, the image of my little blue bird hanging in an excellent museum always brings me delight.