Three Cats Waiting for War

When I finished high school I was really set about NOT going to college. I was somewhat rebellious and had not really liked the academic part of high school and saw no reason to go to college, especially as I had no idea what I wanted to be when I grew up. I still don't. By my senior year in high school I had taken all the classes needed for graduation and set about spending most of my senior year in fun classes like art.

I had never taken an art class before my senior year and found out that I actually had a little talent. Not much, but a little. So with this new found knowledge I decided I would go to the local college and study art. Again, the rebellious side of me came out and I ONLY took art classes. No way was I going to take math or history or science.

Around this same time, I met my first husband and got married. I was 19 years old. There went the art. There went college.

When I met 'hubby' I was 28 years old, newly divorced and had a 6 and 3 year old. Hubby had just come home from spending a year in France and traveling all over Europe. I saw him as worldly and exotic and felt like the Bohemian in me could relish and come out of hiding, so I started to paint again. I primarily painted with watercolors and painted quite a few. I loved still life's and painting people. I painted and painted for about 2 solid years, framed my artwork and had a showing at our local library. This was in the years 1989-1991.

I have not had any of my artwork hung in a home for the past 13 years. They have been stashed away in the attic. And so it was nice to move to this house and reveal some of them again.

I have hung this in our guest bedroom. It is called " Three Cats Waiting for War". I painted it while watching/listening to CNN as we were about to invade Kuwait/Iraq back in 1991. As I think back to that time, I can tell you for sure, if you had suggested to me that the little 7 year old boy sitting downstairs would one day go to war in the same location, I would have swore on my own grave that you were wrong.

Eerie and I would guess the first time in history that the beginning of a war was broadcast live. I was riveted, I admit.

I still have the cats that created the still life for this painting. Many of them are broken and repaired, much like the soldiers who have fought in wars. It is my prayer that they are 'stronger in the broken places'.

Peace,