Third Time's the Charm

Big, big news! On Saturday, November 19, Clara Grace completed her very first art project. The bidding starts at $2000 for all the Grandparents. It is a serious, somewhat abstract, piece entitled “Brush Fire.”

This project is bound to become a Paulson family tradition. It all started one autumn about three years ago in Morgantown Kentucky when the fall leaves were incredibly bright. Clara’s Mommy had a wild and albeit, frivolous notion of collecting the best colors she could find and constructing a collage. Some might be wondering, “Did she not get enough experiences like this in her abundant childhood?” or, “Did she not have better things to do?” Those People, however, have surely never lived in the self-proclaimed “Catfish Capital of the World" known as Morgantown.

Once she and her compliant husband had scoured the vicinity, plundering neighbor’s trees by night and tramping through briar patches all to obtain the very best colors, they laid them out to be admired on the kitchen floor. Somewhere in the sorting process it occurred to Clara Grace’s Mommy that all the colors and all of their gradations could be found somewhere in fire. Of course, after this she was no longer content with a simple collage, no, this would be a true work of art. Somewhere along the way, Clara’s Daddy became just as enthusiastic about the project--one of the many reasons Clara Grace’s Mommies had married him in the first place. He glued the leaves to poster board, arranging them with dark brown for a first coat, then working from top to bottom in order to hide the stems, purple for the sky, medium orange for a background coat of fire, bright yellow for the flames, red for coals, and light and dark brown for kindling. He even threw in his artistic flare suggesting some bright red, teardrop shaped leaves they’d swiped from a bush be leaping tongues of their fire. Once they’d mounted the final leaf, they placed the work in a plastic frame purchased from Wal-Mart and adorned their humble wall. Clara Grace’s Mommy, who had a flare for puns, certainly not one of the reasons Clara’s Daddy had married her in the first place, christened the work “Brush Fire.”

All was well for several days, and then, inevitably, the whole collage turned brown and crinkly. Clara’s Mommy and Daddy were dumbfounded. Hadn’t the Wal-Mart frame been airtight? Next year, they vowed would be different.

And so it was, the next autumn “Brush Fire II” adorned their walls in lamination and was even larger and more colorful than before. They learned however, that it is very difficult--nearly impossible--to slow the relentless tug of disorder and decay on all fallen nature. And even when the long awaited photograph they taken this year, just in case on the odd chance lamination failed, finally returned from Wal-Mart’s labs, they were bitterly defeated once more. Only small parts of colorful leaves poked through the glare of flash on the shiny plastic laminate. In the wake of such defeat, the next autumns passed without seeing any leaf paintings.

Then Clara’s Daddy had the brilliant idea to not even attempt to preserve the work but to capture one second of it in digital format, thus the creation of “Brush Fire III” which you now see before you. By this time, a new member had joined the Paulson family. Clara Grace’s parents appointed her Chief Supervisor as well as Leaf Collecting and Feeling Assistant. It is their hope that in upcoming years they can promote her to Chief Color Sorter, Chief Selector, and even Concept and Design Manager.