Author: trishjefferszeh

So now I enter a new season of growth, represented by the tree.  I’m starting to blog, a thing of which I said I’d never do.  Perhaps though this is a venture to conquer fears so I can share more freely about living a creative life.  Wish me luck.

As a child one of my most favorite places to play was in the woods surrounding my neighborhood.  We would create our own little worlds back amongst those trees I came to know so well.  The best one to climb was in Grandpa Matson’s backyard with all her gnarly branches easily traversed upward upon.  There was the tree swing down at the Knup’s house that everyone used to visit.  Trees I learned not only gave me a place to climb, to build a tree house in or give me shade they also provided oxygen for us to breath.  I was and still am infatuated with trees, each one a different personality.  Each tree has a story to tell if we take the time to notice.

Who can remember finding and pressing leaves between wax paper as tree identification homework in elementary school?  Better yet picking fresh lilacs of which I always did for my Mother’s May birthday.  In 3rd grade I was the O in Lincoln for a school program on Presidents day.  My line was “O is for oak, steady & strong, he was one”.  My fascination with trees has never waivered, only grown larger.  They are symbolic, a metaphor of growth.  Plus Johnny Appleseed was known throughout Ohio and his story taught to us in grade school.  After all  it’s where John began his apprenticeship as an orchardist under a Mr. Crawford.  I wanted to be like him spreading goodness through his apple seeds.

The seeds I choose to nurture though were within people.  The hidden seeds buried deep within them that once given what was needed would burst forth.  They were the seeds of creativity that are buried under years of self doubt or fears.  Yes, I like to assist the germination of others seeds in creativity.  I found to do this wasn’t really about teaching art at all, it was about pulling the weeds that kept those seeds from growing.   The seeds of potential they already have intrinsically within themselves.  I am merely the facilitator in assisting what is within to come forth.  I am a teacher, an artist, an observer, a cultivator of what the spirit can create once set free.