This is something I wrote for all my fellow artists.

The day of Christmas, I woke up and the sky was blue, red and white.
The clouds looked like a Clyde Butcher’s Everglades pictures.
The mountains were for sure Ansel Adams’s Yosemite style.
The ground was painted like Pollock’s black and white drip paintings
and my house looked like Edward Hopper’s “Cape Code Sunset” white
house.
I saw a man and woman walking on the street. They looked like Romeo
and Juliet in a Shakespeare’s dream. I tried to walk toward them, but
instead my feet moved like the Irish dance from here to there. And
when I tried to speak to them, I was only able to recite Maya
Angelous’s poem “Still I Rise”. By this time, I felt like Edvard
Munch’s painting “The Scream” and when I was ready to shout, something
made me pause. So I paused. And it was in that moment that I realized
that I am an artist in all forms. I realized that my Christmas gift
this year wasn’t a Romero Britto rolling carry-on or a modern looking
metal basket by Italian designer Alessi. Instead this year, my gift
was the ability to see the world with the eyes of the artist in my
heart.

This Christmas, I leave you with this thought. Remember that no matter
what happens under your Christmas tree, you will always have your
eternal Christmas gift: your imagination and your art.

Merry Christmas my fellow artists.

Best,

Vanessa Montenegro
Copyright © 2010 Vanessa Montenegro