Scultpure and some thoughts on finishing what you start

When the kids challenged me to photograph a sculpture today I knew they had something different in mind. The lovely Marie loves to visit the Sam Houston statue at Hermann Park, but I’ll tell you what. It is HOT outside. I wasn’t going to Hermann Park or the Museum of Fine Arts. No way, no how. Around the corner from my house there’s a cool sculpture that a welder neighbor of ours crafted and two blocks away there’s a giant fishing rod dangling a fish. All good subject matters, but I was too hot to leave the house. So I made a pitcher of cherry limeade and took a picture of the whale sculpture that the lovely Marie made in second grade for my mother’s day gift. I really do love it.

Did I mention it was HOT today? Too hot to go to Sonic for a cherry limeade, so I made one myself. Here’s my improvised recipe:

First make a simple syrup with 2 cups sugar (I used about 2 tablespoons less than that) and 1 cup of water and ¼ cup of frozen cherries. (I had exactly that much in the freezer, so that’s what I used. I told you I improvised). Stir constantly and once the water boils take the syrup off the stove. Pour the mixture into a gallon pitcher filled with crushed ice. The ice will melt and you will add in 2 cups of fresh squeezed lime juice. Stir it up  then add water to fill the gallon pitcher and enjoy the limeade over crushed ice. Yum!

This is the David sculpture by Michelangelo, of course. My son Marty aspires to go to Yale and major in art so that he can become a sculptor. One of his favorite bedtime stories that I used to tell him was how Leonardo DaVinci and Michelangelo once got into a fist fight over a piece of marble. Leonardo had some ideas of what he might do and Michelangelo knew he would sculpt David. I had read about this somewhere and it was such fun to tell this apocryphal story to my son whose eyes would widen in wonder. He always got the giggles when my husband would chime in from the other room saying that of course Michelangelo kicked DaVinci’s butt, because he was a stone mason with big muscles and DaVinci was just a daydreamer. Just? As if... 

I myself am a daydreamer.  This is one of my favorite books with some really great insights in how to channel your creativity. I highly recommend it. When I would tell my son the story of the fight over the marble that both great artists wanted, it was to illustrate the point that finishing what you start is very important. With that being said, I need to work on the novel I’m writing. See you next time!