creative fire

The first evening of our cross-country trek from Michigan to California was spent with friends in Kokomo, Indiana.  David has known Nancy and Steve Bayer since college where Dave played Huck Finn to Steve’s Tom Sawyer.  Both have retained their youthful sense of fun and creativity.  As a matter of fact, Nancy and Steve do everything…their art, their home restoration, their husbandry of the land, their intentional grandparenting…with the same mixture of faith and aesthetic beauty that I was first introduced to in 1976 in their sweet old home in Tipton, Indiana.  Both are trained artists and in the 70s were teaching middle school.  Steve’s primary medium was ceramics, and Nancy’s was quilting and painting; but they have never let that limit them.  Creativity oozes out of their fingertips, no matter what they touch.  Steve can’t pass a twig without seeing a “wood-walker” waiting to take its pose on a log, and Nancy has hauled slabs of granite and bits of stone to build her own dried creek bed on their property.  Their land is their canvas. 

They have also raised two remarkable daughters.  Kendra lives with them with her husband and their songbird of a daughter, Lumen Arie.  Together Nancy, Steve and Kendra hold classes called “Art and Nature” on the second Saturday of every month.  Their next class will focus on the phases of the moon.  Each participant will leave with a finished, matted piece of art ready for hanging.  I wish that I lived closer.  I’d be there with my five grandkids in tow. 

Their other daughter, Gretchen, moved to California and for a few years was my personal assistant.  She is a jewelry maker and photographer.  Her artistry can be seen on Instagram #thesnapshotist.  Some of her photographs have inspired and illustrated my poetry. 

I’m not doing justice to their artistic energies and their dazzlingly expansive vision of life.  I will simply leave you with an image viewed from the front door of a home ignited with creative fire. 

Love, Liz