Lillian Hellman wrote in her autobiographical collection of stories, Pentimento,

 

“Old paint on a canvas, as it ages, sometimes becomes transparent.

When that happens it is possible, in some pictures, to see the original lines:

a tree will show through a woman's dress, a child makes way for a dog,

a large boat is no longer on an open sea. That is called pentimento because

the painter "repented," changed his mind. Perhaps it would be as well to say

that the old conception, replaced by a later choice, is a way of seeing and then seeing again.”

 

I continually return to this beautiful sentiment.  The idea that choice and change is fluid, and that the result of that is Art, sums up the way I look at life. The notion of "seeing and then seeing again" has been the essence and the catalyst for so much of my life. 

 

Reimagining has led me from school to work to love to family.  It has put me in Manhattan, Las Vegas, and Westborough, Massachusetts.  It has inspired me to go to school for architecture, work for world renowned design firms, put my pencils aside and pick up an apron to start a catering company, reenter the design world as an interior designer, open an art studio, step onto a yoga mat and then into the role of a teacher.  Sometimes courageous but mostly just crazy I embrace my own transparency letting my joy of creating, cooking, movement or whatever my latest passion is rise to the surface and take the helm for a while.

 

Like those heralded felines with nine lives its been my instinct to leap and luckily to land on my feet. What's next? I can't say but I hope my paint becomes thick with new conceptions yet I stay transparent as I age revealing all that I am and have been.  I hope the same for you.