Imagine you’re in the mountains, walking at twilight. It’s a beautiful, warm and clear night. The sunset is painting your favorite colors just over the mountains. The sky above you is gradually darkening, providing the twinkling stars a backdrop of deep blues.
On each side of the pathway stands a small group of evergreens that appear purple in the fading light. The path stretching before you leads toward the mountains beyond, still bright with light but not for long.
This is one of your favorite places to be, and you are moved by the beauty around you.
You just walked into one of my favorite pieces of art. It was painted for us by Atlanta artist, Dawn Kinney Martin.
Before my husband Mart and I met, he met Dawn at an arts festival and immediately liked her and her painting style. He bought a couple of her smaller pieces and hung them in his closet.
Why in the world would he hang original art in his closet? you may be asking.
Good question! The walls in his house were already filled with art. And this was no ordinary closet. It was a walk-in—a very nice, organized, bright space with a window and no door, so he was able to easily see and appreciate the art from the room beyond.
When Mart later headed up a committee that was planning an arts festival, he commissioned Dawn to paint the design for the festival tee shirt.
Soon after, we got engaged and asked her to do a painting for us, for our wedding invitation. We gave her an idea of what we wanted—mountains, a path, blues and purples. For us, the path represented the twists and turns our lives took before we met as well as the journey we would take together into the future.
After our conversation with her, we waited, both of us confident that we would like whatever she made for us.
And we did. When the painting was ready, we went to Dawn's house in a hip area of town. Her bungalow had a one-car detached garage in the back yard that she’d turned it into her art studio. She showed us around, pointing out several paintings in various stages of completion.
Then she showed us ours. The scene, the path, the colors—all of them just right.
Today, the original sits on a small easel in our dining room. On the wall above it hangs the wedding invitation, which we had framed in a mat that was signed by all the guests. Most of the guests wrote witty or sweet messages to us. But my favorite note just might be this one: “O glorious day!”
And it was.
Do you have a special piece of art? It doesn’t have to be an original piece—just something that means something to you. I’d love to hear about it in the comments below or on Facebook.
Today’s post is part of an occasional series on art pieces in our house. If you like this, sign up below to get my posts weekly in your inbox, and you’ll also receive a free piece of artwork. Thanks for reading!
