Gifts from the Sea

I have always enjoyed the act of reading...
curling up in a cozy chair or on the bed,
snuggling beneath a blanket with a good
book in hand, finding myself lost among
the pages, transported to another time or
place through the carefully woven words
of a story.

So you can see how easy it might be,
that a familiar manuscript began as the
foundation for my February Nature
Gathered artwork. A classic piece of
literature filled with wisdom that is still
as meaningful, maybe even more so today,
as it was the very first time I opened the cover.

Gifts from the Sea was merely a passing
fancy or impulse purchase, something
that I had bought off of the discount
shelves of a local bookstore over ten
years ago. I don't know what I really
expected from Mrs. Lindbergh's prose,
but I definitely got more than I bargained
for. What the thin paperback was lacking
in girth, it made up for in content.

I have never been much of one to read and
re-read the same tale twice. And honestly,
I had absolutely no intentions of re-reading
this book when I decided to pull it down from
the shelf, at the end of January. I was just
hoping to maybe, find a passage or two that
might spark in me, a starting point from which
to base this latest piece of art.

But it only took a few sentences to find myself
mesmerized once again by the thoughtful
observations emanating from its pages.

All of a sudden, I had not only re-read the entire
book but I had actually read it twice. It was
inspiration magnified.


Carefully I stitched quotes from the book onto my
canvas, to represent the ocean waves washing
their wisdom upon the sandy shores of my being.


And in the midst of our day to day, we discover
treasures, just like finding beautiful shells along
the beach. Such priceless gems for us to hold,
to keep, to help guide us along life's path.
Reminders of who we are and where we have
been, urging us to be still and listen to the
rhythms of our own heart and soul, to follow
our dreams, to reach out and be
a light in this sometimes dark world.


I invite you to visit the Nature Gathered Blog
to see my finished work of art, along with other
interpretations of this February theme, The Sea.