Where Did It Come From

Did you ever wonder where your artistic talent came from? do you just have a 7th sense of art? Could it be inherited, or could it be acquired? These are all great questions and I am sure there are as many answers to that question as their are artists to answer them.
I always wondered why I loved anything artistic. Were my parents artistic? Was it a part of my childhood? The answer to both of those questions is no, it was not. Being adopted, I always "assumed" that my biological parents must have been artistic and I inherited it from them because my adopted parents were not inclined in that direction at all. 
Looking back, my favorite class in grade school was penmanship, and let me tell you this goes way back. When I was in grade school, there wasn't any kindergarten, you started out in 1st grade when you were five and had three grades in one room.(Gosh, that is only a stones throw away from walking to school five miles, uphill both ways in a blizzard.) I loved making those sweeping letters and "creating" a page full of perfect letters that made up the alphabet. Oh how I hated it when the pen would drip and a "splotch" appeared on that perfect paper because that ruined my creation. Yes, we had pens that you had to fill up with ink from an ink bottle that sat in that perfect little circle on your desk.
While the other classes were in session I was busy spending my time creating my alphabet Picasso. Sad that this has become a lost art.
For the rest of my grade school experience, art was not a part of the curriculum and I didn't get to revisit it until High school.
(We will delve into that story next week) After dabbling in several mediums and enjoying them all, other interests took hold and the years went by without really digging deep into any form of Artistic endeavor.
In later life while searching for my birth family, I found a person with a name I was looking for who was a professor of art at a prestigious college.  My heart skipped a beat as I surely thought, this is where I must have gotten my love of art, only to be disappointed when I found out it was the wrong person with the "right" name. Back to square one.
Through the years, the question has always been with me but I find it less and less intimidating as to where it came from and more and more thankful that it is part of my makeup.
What is your first recollection of being artistic? Do you feel that it was inherited, or encouraged as a young person? What steps did you take to your current situation?


Stay tuned as we research this----


Lyndson
Contributing Artist, Seranya Studios Art Boutique