What do you think a voice would look like (if it could look like anything)? I think some voices might be dark red on canvas. With big, thick brush strokes. I don’t really like those voices. Other voices might be barely visible, off-white on white. You’d need to be inches from the canvas to even notice the nuances. Young voices would be rich with all the colors in the spectrum, painted with round, billowing edges. And, if older voices were lucky, they’d look a lot like younger voices. At least on canvas.

This is what I’d like my voice to look like:

Dear voice,

At first I didn’t know how to begin painting you. So I just closed my eyes. I started with all the other voices around me, some gray, some really rich and beautiful and interesting. And then I began on you. I’d like for you to be the product of a lot of different experiences, colorful experiences. And I’d like for you to take on a unique and intricate shape, but a shape that is open and aimed at the sky. And I’d like for pretty pink flowers to be your words whenever possible. Thanks for everything so far. Go get ‘em!

Love,

Leora

Against all odds I wanted to give the world an undeniable gift of some kind. Eventually, as you might have guessed, I had the audacity to begin thinking of myself as an artist. And tangled up in this longing to discover my true place of birth was a ragged prayer I still sometimes toss at the sky. God, I pray, by some miracle, make my life a work of art. What does it look like and feel like to live artfully? I think to myself that I could begin the work of answering this question in ways that might actually be of use to someone if I weren’t drunk on the sky. I have a problem with these clouds that loom and sleigh across the the basking blue floor of heaven: I get lost in that white-as-bone, icy fluff. It sometimes feels as if the sky, maybe more than anything else, will ultimately break my heart.

-Linford Detweiler (Over the Rhine)

Like Linford, I’ve worked to develop the audacity needed to call myself an artist. But, I’m still not able to put into words what living artfully means. I know that, for me, it has a lot to do with swallowing whole those unexpected encounters with beauty with the hunger of a five-year-old. The desire to binge on sweets fully intact.

Oh, and I paint. You can check out my website, plus I’ll be featuring a couple favorites here on my blog. This one, yellow/red, is part of my new “oils series” (there’s a story behind this painting, but for another time):

This afternoon all of the stars in my interesting little pocket of universe unexpectedly collided. I resurrected all of my childhood beliefs that good things (great things!) can happen to me for no reason.

It can be hard, at times, to feel like this ordered world we live in still dishes out gifts that we haven’t worked for. As a cake-breathed kid, my love-rich environment conditioned me to assume that a trip to the zoo was a toothless grin away and dessert before dinner was just natural. I had no qualms about asking for an extra squirt of flavor in my coconut snowcone, even though I hadn’t paid for it. And a trip to the Wickett, Texas swimming pool was a sure thing every summer afternoon at 4pm, no matter how good or bad my brother and I had been earlier in the day. (Maybe our punishment for bad behavior was having to wear a stripe of bright green zink-oxide down the bridges of our noses). Life was a lot simpler then and, like a lot of kids, I was born with rose-tinted glasses intact.

Post-college, though, real life quickly introduced herself to me. As an artist, that “introduction” was especially hard to stomach. When I painted stick figures for my parents, they gave me a quarter. Now, when I spend months painting and showing my work, I’ve learned to expect some negative (and even worse, some apathetic) reactions. Gifts and praise are not freely given. They’re earned. It’s harder for me to ask for an extra squirt of coconut flavoring in my snowcone without having a dollar bill tucked away in my back pocket just in case.

Maybe that realism shifted a little to idealism this afternoon.

Out of the blue, we got a call that the Soiled Dove (a great little venue in Denver) had upgraded our tickets to the Over the Rhine show taking place this coming Saturday evening. We were told by someone named Chris M. that we were going to be given a special table, front and center with our very own nameplate for the show.

We called and asked Chris M. why we’d somehow won the music lottery without ever having to gamble on a ticket. His response was kind and also kind of suspicious/secretive. “Well, we sometimes just do that for guests.” But, our very own nameplate? At a venue we’ve never visited before? Weird.

And also wonderful. You see, earlier this morning I spent a good 15 minutes daydreaming about Linford Detweiler and Karin Bergquist, the songbirds behind the band name. I first learned of OtR about 3 years ago. My first song (akin to a first kiss really) was “Latter Days.” For me, the lyrics helped to edify my belief that there will always be glimmers of beauty in the worst kinds of pain. And Karin’s voice. O h, t h a t v o i c e. . .

Hearing Karin sing is as close as I think I’ll ever get to hearing an angel and this Saturday evening I get to sit inches away from this muse. Should I try and probe to see why we were called and told we will be treated like royalty this weekend? Rather than find out there were just extra seats and we got the long straw, I think I’ll just assume that this is one of many upcoming encounters with grace. I will try to take some pictures at the show. After all, I’ll probably have the best view in the house.

It is so much more fun to be an idealist than a realist anyway.