Sunday night, The King and I were talking as we were driving home from his folk’s house. We were talking about what most couples talk about…art. We talk about art a lot.

This is because my life is surrounded by art, and not by my own art.

As I may have mentioned before, my Dad is an art teacher. I know you have heard that “those who can’t, teach”, but he can draw, paint, and photograph. With all this new fangled technology, he has even begun to make his own movies (which he sends out to us and we enjoy, profusely). For as long as I can remember my Dad has used his artistic talents. Every Christmas when I was little, he would paint our front windows with scenes of Santa or a manger. Just like the store fronts. On Sundays he would take us out in the yard and take photos of us in our Church clothes. I think my siblings and I are the most photographed kids in the planet (at least in the 80’s).

All of us kids took my Dad’s class when we were in high school. I think I was the only that enjoyed it. I didn’t say it came very naturally to me, but I did enjoy it. The rest of the siblings didn’t even want to be bothered with it. Come to think of it, I don’t think my older brother ever took his class. Basically, my Dad’s artistic genes passed all of us by. I wanted it to come naturally to me, but it just didn’t.

So what do I end up doing? I marry an artist.

The King has a degree in Fine Arts. Meaning, he’s a painter. He hasn’t painted since we’ve been married (he’s been too busy building houses and working at boring jobs). I have to view his works by visiting houses where his work is hung. His stuff is good. I love to see it, and to try to picture him and where he was in his life when he painted them. It’s a person that I don’t know, but would love to.

My two closest friends out here in Seattle are also artists. The King actually was in the same art program with them in college, and they ended up moving out here (one even married one of his closest friends). After we got married, they sort migrated into becoming my friends. May makes her living as an illustrator. This is pretty hard to do. The other one is a sculptor.

Everything the three of us do is revolved around some sort of level of creativity. Remember how I mentioned that we have an ornament exchange with them every Christmas? I usually just give them an ornament that I’ve bought. While they always hand make them. For instance this year my friend, May made us a beautiful ornament with wire and beads that she had lying around. They always just have this stuff lying around. You need to hand bound a keepsake book? Just ask May, she’ll have all the stuff you need and know how to do it. And know how to do it well. Need to paint some flower pots to give as gifts? Yep-she’s got all the stuff for that just sitting around her house just waiting for that.

This last year, we decided that since none of us are rolling in money, we would make our birthday gifts to each other. I think I made May some goofy bracelet. She painted this picture of me (riding on a scooter, which we have a storage unit full of). She painted it with her regualr craft paints on a piece a sheet metal she had sitting around her garage.

The King isn’t this kind of an artist. He doesn’t paint cutesy pictures or draw horses with angels riding on them. He’s more of the thinking man’s artist. I can’t even comprehend how he comes up with all the ideas. He must never sleep, with all the things he comes up with. He has enough ideas to keep him busy painting for years. He even has hired the models and has still photos of them, of which to base his paintings on. Then there are his ideas on furniture. He even started making furniture last year and was able to sell quite a few pieces before getting too busy to keep that up.

Not only does he have ideas, but all of his ideas are amazing. And he’s good at everything he does. You wouldn’t think that this is a problem, but with The King, it is. He just doesn’t have enough time to do all the things he wants to do. This frustrates him and makes me laugh. I am constantly telling him that people wish their problems were that they had too many ideas, and that they could actually pull off their ideas.

Being surrounded by these amazingly artistic people, especially The King, just reminds me how I am so.not.artistic. And makes me hope and pray that our little guy will inherit some of my Dad’s and The King’s artistic genes.

Then maybe he and The King can start their own furniture business.