When I was little I was always perplexed as to why my parents were so proud of the things I did.  Winning the school Spelling Bee I get.  Playing Dorothy in “The Wizard of Oz” I get.  Writing and publishing two books I get.  But they would be equally as proud of whatever craft I brought home which, frankly, was not great.  Cut several decades later to my little girl.  My goodness minutes after she was born I was on Facebook so proud that my baby was only one of two in over fifteen years (according to the nurse) to score a perfect ten on her Apgar test!  I did not even know what that was.  But WOW was I ever proud!  I never had the talent for painting like my mother did.  She used to ride the streetcar barefoot as a ten year old and take art lessons at Fair Park in downtown Dallas.  Can you imagine a child doing that today?!  She used models from Audubon books and had a true gift.  I, on the other hand, never really knew how to draw.  A couple of years ago I went to a paint (and drink) class where I attempted my first ever painting — the Dallas skyline.  One building looks distinctly phallic, but nevertheless I tried.  On this day my little one attended her first “paint party” and this was the piece chosen.  I loved it and of course I think it is a masterpiece!  It now proudly hangs in her room, and I had her sign and date it at the bottom for posterity.  I do not know if it is discernible from this picture, but she chose to make all her gumballs pink.  Of course that is the beauty of the class — everyone’s painting is completely unique.  The American clergyman Henry Ward Beecher once said, “Every artist dips his brush in his own soul, and paints his own nature into his pictures.”  I thought that was really profound.  I had never thought of art in terms of the artist.  Now I see things with a different eye.