Just now, for example, she was decorating a "G" with shells and such (it's a beachy-themed wedding), and after coating it with a layer of tiny beige shells pieces, she asked me to come take a look. Several questions thus ensued, "should I outline it with this? Or this? Or these beads?" "Should I fill it in or sort of scatter things?" "Big shells or little?" and many more that had my imagination spinning and not grasping anything. After three minutes of complete bafflement, Mom started placing shells, and I simply began rearranging them, flicking off ones too small or two dark, picked a few small beads from her bowls and placed them just so. And, voila! Under ten minutes we'd figured it out.
And that, my friends, was the very first time I understood my own talent. Because I had started out feeling like nothing was going to make that thing pretty (not that it was ugly, I just had no optimism in the materials around), and then being able to do my thing, and see the results, I understood that there is something to this "having an eye for art, for placement." It's the first time that I saw something I had made (or, well, mostly me), and understand that it really isn't something Mom or anybody can make. Because that's what I've thought all this time-- that ANYBODY could be doing what I do, making the frames, (because, hello, it's just glueing things down on a frame) just nobody DOES because they have more important things to do in their real lives with real jobs. That if people just tried it, they'd produce the exact same things I do.
And maybe, on some level, that's true. There are surely some people out there who are artistic and creative and could make some awesome frames. But maybe a lot of people WOULDNT. Their quality or look or whatever wouldn't be the same, because, apparently, "they don't have an eye for ________." Placement. Color. Art.
But I do.
Huh.
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