A neighbor gave our family
a subscription to The National Geographic when I was ten years old.
Well, I tell you what!
It exploded my small farm
world and filled my mind with questions for which there no answers available to
this farm girl. Each magazine was thumbed and read to pieces by the entire family.
“Class Artist” was my
nickname then, because pencil and paper were always in my hands. And now, the Nat’l Geo. was a powerful source
from which images poured…flowers, towering trees, and exotic animals.
Then at age 17, a strange metamorphism
happened. The photos had always been my
source; now the captions, stories, and the people hit me in their significance. It was as if the faces and dark eyes leaped out at me, saying, “Look at me!
Understand me!”
Where my pencil had loved
flowers and birds before, now my paper flew through fingers as I tried to
capture the courage, sorrow, fear, grief and more of people far way. Peering into their hollow pained eyes, I
realized that glass-domed farm-world in which I lived was about to
shatter. At least for me, this would
propel me out into other places.
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Source
Faces like these captured me. |
