Ever since I was a little kid, I’ve been repulsed by buttons. I don’t know why. I don’t remember being traumatized by a button. Even the word is uncomfortable for me.

It’s an embarrassing phobia to have, because I know it doesn’t make any sense.

My mother would dress my brothers and me in white button down shirts for church, and by the time we got out to the car afterwards, I had my dress shirt off and was in my t shirt.

Steve Jobs had the same condition. It has a name: Koumpounophobia.

I felt some comfort from learning that this is a thing. That I’m not the only one.

I guess it’s fairly common for people to be repulsed by little holes, like on a poppy pod, or even the seeds on a strawberry. Those things don’t bother me at all, but maybe they’re related. Coins don’t disturb me. The metal button on a pair of jeans is no problem for me at all. It’s the plastic ones that I hate. Especially if they’re brownish to resemble antler or wood. Those look like boogers.

Often, I have to wear dress shirts to perform weddings. I’m ok with it if I have a necktie to cover the buttons. If I take my suit coat off, I can roll the shirt cuff.

Recently I thought it might be a good idea to change my look. For many decades, my default has been t shirts or sweatshirts and jeans. I have some clothes that I’ve been wearing for 10, 15 years. Some longer.

Three years ago, when I got a job at the school, I bought a couple of button down shirts to wear to work. I wore one of them one time on the first day of school. Now I’m trying it again.

By talking about it or writing about it, maybe I can desensitize myself.

Twice this week, I wore button down shirts to work. I have new ones in several colors. Maybe I can do this.

It’s so easy to pick a famous artist to name as my inspiration, and yes, they made a lot of beautiful paintings! Those great masters were seen by the right people at the right time, and then it was easy for others to agree. They’re pretty much out of reach by people like me.

For my inspiration, I’ll choose my grandfather, who would stop the car in order to sketch the power lines with crayon. My grandfather, who did rubbings of medallions set into the floor of a crowded piazza. My grandfather, who taught art classes on the coast of Maine.

He was neither intimidated nor intimidating. I don’t know that he ever showed his work in an art gallery. I think he drew and painted because he loved to do it. I don’t believe there is any better reason.

The emotions that cause us to create are bound to come through in what we create. We don’t have to manufacture emotions in our art, though we tend to get better at expressing them as we find our own voice and visual vocabulary. This is how our style changes as we mature. It’s not always about adding a new trick. As we gain confidence, we can let go of the tricks, and respect our viewers to see for themselves. Art is not a one sided conversation.

You don’t need anyone to tell you what to see or what to feel.

Don’t follow in anyone else’s footsteps. You have footsteps of your own.

16x20x1.5 acrylic on canvas

Kaamos is the Finnish word for the polar night. A time for remembering the light. For contemplating and appreciating the summer days. A time for fires and saunas.

The winter darkness is not so extreme here in northern Minnesota, but with daylight savings time it is getting dark in the afternoon.

In the summer months, I spend days outside with my kids. Hiking, boating, fishing, swimming, biking, roasting coffee beans over the fire. In the winter, I become more contemplative and long for those warm, sunlit days.

Darkness tells us what light is. There is a Finnish saying,

Even a small star shines in the darkness.

We don’t create things out of nothing. We rearrange things that we are aware of. I guess sometimes we’re not aware of them consciously, but they’ve gotten into our mind and then sometimes make a surprise appearance.

There are things we knew about but didn’t appreciate yet.

When we went on summer vacations in the 1960s I was interested in one thing. Playing with my cousins.

Dad pointed out the house where he was born. We’d go to the church where mom and dad got married. I met my grandfather’s sister. We drove down a stretch of road where mom terrified her brothers by driving 35 miles per hour. None of it meant that much to me.

I felt like an outsider with my relatives because I had a different last name and we lived far away.

For the last couple of weeks, I’ve been working on my family tree, and I want to find out as much as I can. I want to visit the relatives that are still living in New England, and the graves of those who are deceased.

We get this brief opportunity to be the living ones. My mother wrote an account of her early life that showed me that her generation, and each generation before me, was made of real people with a life full of struggles and dreams.

These are the things floating on the surface of my stream of consciousness now, and are the kind of things that will come out in my creative expression.

Creativity comes naturally to each of us whether we feel we are creative or not. We have to interpret and piece details together in order to know anything at all. Creativity is not reserved for artists, though artists use it to tell their stories. The most whimsical… the most fantastical pictures and stories were stitched together from pieces in the artist’s mental scrapbook.

We develop our craft not only by practicing the creation of art, but by having experiences, observing and reading.

I sometimes feel bad that I didn’t appreciate things earlier, but realization comes in its own time.

I always thought it was interesting the way other cultures remembered their ancestors. It seemed like such a foreign concept to me. I saw it in movies and documentaries. I just dismissed my forebears and thought mine was the only generation that mattered.

Now I see that I am just a link in the chain.

My ancestors were winners. They were successful in passing on their genes to me.

Now I am trying to piece the family together.

I was fortunate to inherit many old photographs, the study of which raised more questions, and each small answer now feels like a victory. It’s a puzzle to understand them from the clues left behind.

By reconstructing my family tree, I see that I am part of something bigger than I realized. Throngs of people contributed to me. I can look into the mirror and see them looking back through the centuries… through my eyes.

I remember the day I stood in a cemetery with my grandmother. She took me from grave to grave saying “This is my mother… this is my grandmother.”

It was peaceful, standing with her in the dappled sunlight. I remember it as a shimmering day, the way I remember all those New England vacation days.

I want to go back there again, to the final resting place of those who came before me. I wasn’t ready to appreciate them yet.

Now I’m much closer to the end of my life. My grandmother and my mother have passed over to join the army of predecessors who are no longer here. I want to know them, and to honor them.