My Life Living With an Artist . . .

by 12 years old Taylor Wells

It is a Saturday afternoon and once again I am sitting at an art gallery watching my mom draw another portrait. She yells at her art work for not turning out the way she wants and then takes a break, going outside while I sit watching the gallery, looking at the amazing pictures and paintings. She comes back in and works on her portrait again. She starts to get it to work then gets mad again and side tracked. I watch it all. We come back home and she goes to finish her commission painting. I watch my mother paint and sketch.

My friends think it is so cool that my mom is an artist and all I say is, beware of the “Crazy” Artist. They laugh at it all. My friends love my mom because she is an artist and she is so fun to be with. I love being the daughter of an artist. It’s amazing what other people miss out on. I think Kids my age should be exposed to art and actually realize what texture, color, shapes, sizes, and other graphics are in a piece. She always has something to do with her art and I am always watching her. I love her art. It is amazing, and not just because she is my mother. If I didn’t know her and I came into a gallery and saw one of her paintings, I would say wow, that’s amazing. I love seeing an article come out about her. It’s fantastic that she has had so many people come up to her and ask her if she is the one who got interviewed and where her work is. Every room in our house has some type of art or art supplies in it.

My mom gets inspired by really strange things. For instance we were driving down the country road talking about scary movies and then she yelled out “Oh my god! I know what my next painting is going to be.” The next painting she did was of the moon with the trees covering it. She did a series of paintings like that. For Christmas she did six painting of our dog that had to get put down last year for presents for the family. She used different pictures of him and painted them in different mediums. I love watching her paint; it is so interesting to see it take shape.

She has a studio in our attic and barely uses it unless it’s the summer or really warm up there, other wise she uses any room in the house, which is not fun to clean up! One time I got sick and she had to stay home from work and the next day I went to school and got my assignments and had to draw a picture of a mixture of animals and we did a monkey, giraffe, and an elephant. It was called a Gerelefhonkey. Then we made several other ones like it but different animals. When we lived in Milwaukee she did a statue of me and then we moved to Burlington, Wisconsin and left it behind in Milwaukee. My mom wants to do another statue or painting of me. I love posing for her paintings or statues. One year my mom decided to do a painting of my step-grandmother, who passed away, for my step-grandfather Ron. It was amazing to watch her paint this because she talked to the painting a lot and it almost seemed like she was here with us. Grandpa Ron was very moved by the painting and now it’s still hanging in his living room today. Mom likes to paint portraits. It’s a little weird because she likes to talk to the people that she is painting like they are there.

My life is full of color and very interesting. That’s why I love being the daughter of Kim Rahal.