Put Your $5.00 in the Cigar Box

Connecting with our childhood passions is so stabilizing and self-soothing.

Childhood memories are strong some days. I have a fond collection of them surrounding art school on Saturday mornings. There was always a completeness to the feeling of life on Saturday mornings.  An anticipated wholeness of being.   The overarching sense of everything being in its proper place.  Like “God is in his heaven; all is right with the world” sort of thing.  

Saturday morning was art school with Mrs. Burford.

Jeanne Doane Burford was a Bucks County PA artist from Churchville, PA. She had the greatest of studios – especially for the young artist. The studio was in addition to a glorious Victorian house – painted up as a regal Painted Lady with colors that suburbanites would never understand. It had a painting of a clock on the porch – which I have not been able to recall what it said. But, for me, it meant TIME IS ABOUT TO STAND STILL.

When you pulled into the parking lot (really just an extra wide driveway) and were dropped off out back of the painted lady, you ran straight for the olive green barn. Once you lifted the latch and headed inside, you were confronted with stairs to the loft (which were on the left, a paneled wall was on the right) which was paradise incarnate. You had to first sign in and add your five dollars to the pile of cash in the cigar box. Once that was done, you were about to become – AGAIN AND AGAIN – an artist.

I had friends that attended art school with me – one of them died too young long ago – and they are always in my heart when I remember those days. Every time I organize my creating space, every time I see an old painted lady, every time I see an old olive green barn, and every time I think of Saturday morning art school those friends and those days are with me – IMMEDIATELY and FULL BLOWN.

And, if I take a moment to center down into that interior place when I sit down to create, I feel like I am continuing the journey from way back there 52 years ago.

What is your story of connecting to a passion you have had ALL YOUR DAYS? Dig for it, and tell it to yourself – AGAIN AND AGAIN.

Two paintings by Mrs. Burford:

Above photos by Jeanne and below quote taken from Facebook’s Bucks County History Group  · post by, Richard Noe ·February 24 ·Up unto now, 2 “Hidden Treasures”. Paintings lately hanging on a wall in Holland, PA. Famous local Artist, Jeanne Doane Burford, 1960 painted both the Mill as it was then and the Store / House combo of the Finney Family who owned the Mill across the street on Buck RD. Both original watercolor 11×14 framed paintings have had “digital refreshment”, as watercolor paintings tend to fade over 65 years of time due to sunlight and overhead lighting. A huge THANKYOU to Bob Wright for letting me copy his paintings with my camera in RAW format/Natural sunlight.