Arts Festival

I bought this incredibly beautiful collage at the Arts Festival yesterday. The artist combines dried flowers, bits of pictures or stamps or images, and quotations to create really interesting collages. I couldn’t really afford to buy one of her pieces, but I found a smaller one that really spoke to me. I rationalized it by telling myself I was “supporting the arts.”

When I took the piece up to purchase, the artist was thrilled. “Oh, I made that one this morning! I love that quote.” Since she was the artist, I thought it would be tacky to say I was buying her work for the quotation, so I said, “Yes, the quote is nice, too.” She was caught off guard by that, genuinely pleased. To be honest, I liked the piece because of the combination of the artistry (which included dried purple flowers, and purple is my favorite color!) AND the quotation. It was the combination that made it so aesthetically pleasing to me.

The collage will go on my wall, to inspire and move and cheer me. The quotation I will share:

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness that frightens us. We ask
ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be. You are a child of God.
Your playing small does not serve the world.
There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t
feel insecure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory
of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us, it is in everyone.
And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people
permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fears, our
presence automatically liberates others.
-- Marianne Williamson