{"id":12613,"date":"2018-02-08T13:07:26","date_gmt":"2018-02-08T21:07:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/?p=12613"},"modified":"2018-02-09T13:19:53","modified_gmt":"2018-02-09T21:19:53","slug":"age-and-a-gift","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/2018\/02\/08\/age-and-a-gift\/","title":{"rendered":"Age, and a Gift"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a><\/h6>\n
Night Flight<\/em>, 40×30, acrylic. Any mistakes?
\nActually this one no longer exists. I used is as underpainting for one of new series on The Beatitudes. (Click for another of that.)<\/a><\/h6>\n

Remember your creator in the days of your youth . . . *<\/em><\/p>\n

That’s a Biblical statement about getting old. By that time I’ll be glad if I can remember anything at all.<\/p>\n

Sometimes I feel I’ve been gifted. I can paint. It’s a gift. But I don’t mean it like that.<\/p>\n

What I mean is I’ve been given something that can keep me occupied, interested and growing for the rest of my life. That is a gift.<\/p>\n

As I’ve long since learned, if you find what you love you won’t have to work another day in your life.<\/p>\n

Find it now, in the days of your youth,\u00a0before the memory goes, the hands shake, the ears get dull and the vision dims.<\/p>\n

Speaking of vision, you’ll remember I reported on the operation for my detached retina. I was told it would take about two months to normalize. It’s been about a month and a half and I’m about three-quarters there. In spite of it, I’ve been painting right along . . . even with the nuisance. Same with reading.<\/p>\n

Impressionists Edgar DeGas and Claude Monet both had bad eyes toward the end, and they kept on painting. Did some of their best work.<\/p>\n

My dad, with his multitude of abilities, continued his side-line tax business long after he retired from his day job. He loved it, and people loved him. He had loyal clients. My mother served tea and everybody became friends. One time I asked him, \u201cDad, when are you going to retire from this?\u201d His answer was that his clients wouldn’t let him, \u201cBesides,\u201d he added, \u201cI think it’s good for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Good answer. No denial of reality but still moving ahead.<\/p>\n

But then he started making mistakes. It was a problem. He finally quit.<\/p>\n

Me, I don’t do tax forms. I paint. The nice thing for me: If I start making mistakes no one will know.<\/p>\n

Ha!<\/p>\n

The art might even get better.<\/p>\n

_____
\n(Currently in San Luis Obispo at sister’s, heading for Salinas to be with kids, then to Ojai to be with each other.)<\/p>\n

* Ecclesiastes 12:1<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There’s a lot to do before we get old, and there’s some we can do right to the end. If we have that we have a gift indeed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12613"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12613"}],"version-history":[{"count":25,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12613\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12641,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12613\/revisions\/12641"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12613"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12613"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12613"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}