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Paperwork: It’s comforting to have artwork on the walls, there when you need it · Illinois Valley - Shaw Local

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  Paperwork? It's comforting to have artwork on the walls there when you
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  need it. This article is being read by an automated
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  voice, brought to you by Everlett. Stand Tilda 62. In the traditional
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  bottom right corner of the painting, I found how my Dad’s had
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  signed off on his artwork. He finished this painting in 1962 when
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  I was 14 years old. Now it fills a prominent spot on
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  my living room wall. Dad's handiwork is scattered across the house, but
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  this one dominates. I
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  would never claim it was his best work, but this one speaks
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  to me. We talk about a time and place long ago. I
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  look at then painting, and a familiar scene unfolds. I was a
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  budding teen, and Dad would have been thirty five. Seems strange now
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  to realize he was so young. So many of my memories are
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  of him older and then getting even older. He had fashioned a
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  small studio in our basement. I saw him painting, but didn't watch
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  him. That would have been intruding into his creative space. But I
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  caught him now and then sitting on his stool, leaning into a
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  large canvas on an easel, working on what is now framed on
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  my wall. I would sneak down and check on his progress. I
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  watched as a majestic Appaloosa horse began to fill the white space,
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  standing on a grassy mound, with a lower range of mountains nearby.
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  Something about the horse was magnificent. The muscle lines Where prominent against
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  his beautiful spotted colouring. He was an important part of the surroundings.
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  He belonged there. But there was something more as the image slowly
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  filled in. Each time I could walk away thinking, My dad did
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  that. How does he do that? Where does such talent come from?
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  It was magical to watch his ideas take form. Later I saw
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  many more paintings, drawings, carvings, and other creations. My admiration grew. I
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  Wondered if his skills could be genetic. I took lessons, and yeah,
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  there were hints of potential. I even surprised myself at times. I
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  remember him showing me how to draw a tree. There was a
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  logic to his process. Start at the bottom with the roots and
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  draw it as it grows. Sketch the bending lines up and outward.
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  Let smaller branches sprout and spread outward and upward. Feel the growth
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  all the way to the tips of the leaves. So I played
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  with art, but eventually I chose to fill a different white space
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  with words. I wish I had talked with him more about his
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  creative process, but how how do you clearly explain imagination and the
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  process of capturing and controlling it? Perhaps the how is not as
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  important or revealing as the why. It's the why that pulled me
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  into these thoughts today. Earlier this year I saved something author Susan
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  Kane posted on Facebook. She shared thoughts about art and expressing ourselves
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  that came from actor Ethan Hawke's TED Talk on The Secret to
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  Discovering you’re Creativity. Most people don't spend a lot of time thinking
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  about poetry, Hawk said. The have a life to live, and they're
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  not really concerned until their father dies, they go to a funeral,
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  you lose a child, somebody breaks your heart, they don't love you
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  anymore, and all of a sudden, you're desperate for making sense out
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  of this life. Has anybody felt this bad before? Or the inverse,
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  something great. You meet somebody and your heart explodes. And that's when
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  art's not a luxury, it's actually sustenance. We need it. He's right.
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  Art in any form helps us understand, find, and express ourselves. It's
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  a hot wire to our emotions, the soul, the depth of who
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  we are or dream to be. In nineteen sixty two my dad
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  was expressing himself, doing something he loved. I do not know what
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  was driving his passion, but I can see he was more than
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  a father. He was a young man who still had hopes and
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  plans for himself, beyond the job he labored at for years to
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  support a family. Dad was exploring who he was and sharing it.
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  He had to look at the painting and see and feel and
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  perhaps discover parts of himself. Now I look at his efforts and
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  see the same. Parts of him, but also parts of me. And
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  it's comforting because he is still in the room. Lonnie Kane, retired
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  managing editor of The Times in Ottawa, also was a reporter for
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  the Herald News and Joliet in the 1970s. His paperwork email is
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  LonnieKane at gmail.com, or mail the News Tribune, 426 2nd Street, LaSalle,
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  Illinois 61301.