Artist at Work

My Aunt Ann, whom my father and I visited last week in Friday Harbor, Washington, is an artist. Everything about Aunt Ann is spacious, ordered, and full of color and light.


She has spent her life with sketch pad in hand, recording life with lines and curves the way I do with words.

When I think of my aunt, I think first of flowers, saturated with color in paintings or fresh in her garden and on every table.


These last days of her life she spends ordering, remembering, and recording.

She is going through a lifetime of sketchbooks, filling black-and-white drawings in with color, adding dates and locations and sometimes a word or two of description.



This pile of books—just a few among the dozens—look like my own stack of journals, but hers are filled with the most intricate renderings of a life lived in full color.



I am honored to have watched my aunt work, to be part of her painting life if only for short periods of time. I am more determined than ever to always have fresh flowers in the house. Such beauty can be added to our lives with a burst of bright color.

Linked up with Outdoor Wednesday, Wordless Wednesday, Seven Clown Circus, and 5 Minutes for Mom