Happy Mother’s Day!

My mother is a particularly amazing woman. She is generous and thoughtful, artistic and musical. She has always loved to paint and is quite good. She is also rather prolific. Our home is filled with her paintings, as she keeps few for herself. She feels that by the time she gets done with a painting, she’s tired of it and doesn’t want to look at it, anymore. We love it, though, as her diversity and changes in style make each one unique and special. Though she has worked with different mediums, her choice is oil. She paints anything, standing still or not. Landscapes, flowers, seascapes, people, animals, whatever looks interesting and will help her work on her technique.

Her first love, though, has always been music. All genre’s, though she has a softness in her heart for jazz and the classics. Although, she started taking piano lessons while still in high school, and played some on her own as I was growing up, she really didn’t begin her “music career” until she was nearing retirement. She decided to learn to play the violin, again. She met another person learning who was playing with a local Old Time Fiddler’s group. Mom joined and was soon entering competitions and “fiddling” up a storm! Soon after, she decided to pick up the viola, started taking lessons and then played with the local orchestra. Once she retired, she then had the time to really devote to lessons and playing.

She has learned to play numerous instruments, but focused on the piano, violin, viola, and cello. She has become particularly adept at the piano and violin, playing anything from classical to jazz, individually or in a group. She plays in public, doing gigs all over, from coffee houses to concert halls, nursing homes to weddings. This Mother’s Day, she will bring her jazz band to play at a local nursery called the Thyme Gardens, which hosts an annual arts and cuisine event. Mom’s music group is the headliner! Not bad, when you’re an energetic and youthful 72!