This week’s edition of Beyond the Cupola features OSB employee, Donita McCormick. Donita shares how she was able to reignite a childhood passion and find joy through painting. Her story reveals a powerful truth: it’s never too late to be what you might have been.
I rejoiced in my 4th grade art class! I loved working with the paints, creating the picture in my mind on paper…but then 4th grade was over. My parents were not artistic, just hard working regular folk, so no encouragement at that young age to pursue art. I began those years of school that required I focus on the first major goal of college and taking classes that would lead me to that goal. Once in college, the goal of graduating and obtaining a lucrative job and income, marriage, family, life in general took over and the dreams and inspiration of creating art – forgotten, left in the memories of 4th grade.
It was 2017 that the artistic desire was renewed. The new fad was come have a drink of choice, paint with friends for a couple of hours. So my sister in law and I went and had a terrific time. I went several times loved every minute. I was able to create something again from my mind and put it on canvas. The challenge was a low variety of pictures and money. Then my daughter introduced me to You-Tube tutorials. My husband encouraged me to go by supplies to work from the spare bedroom at home and then my passion exploded!
With the encouragement of family, I began my new “art quest”. I found that painting allowed me to release stress from daily life, as I had to clear my mind in order to focus on that brush on the canvas. The first 25/30 paintings were small, but they allowed me to learn the basic techniques of painting and the use of different brushes. After painting pictures for family and close friends, I began to get requests for paintings for others outside my close circle. In the past year, I have gained confidence in my work and painted (on a small scale) several pictures that were requests by others to share my joy of painting.
My personal Art Quest has enriched my life and taught me lessons to apply to my life in general. Patience – there is always an “ugly” stage before the beauty emerges and waiting is required. Perspective – you have to walk away and view the picture from a distance to see what the picture looks like as a whole and just not one corner. Courage to be what I might have been…