Maybe I was an artist my whole life, but didn’t know it. Yes, I took some basic art classes as an adolescent. I liked to visit art museums and galleries. I found myself tutoring poor-performing students in my college art history class. I was a supporter of the arts. I was an appreciator of art. Although I could sing and write, I didn’t count art among my talents.

And then, in February 2019, I became what I thought I was not on a cold and dark day, brightened only by the appearance of a magic chicken. It was the day I became an artist.

Read on.

One evening, I was in the guest room folding laundry.

The rhythmic, tactile act of folding was somehow soothing to me.

It was quiet. There was no one yelling, no one staking a claim.

I saw, on the table, the bag from Michael’s that I had bought for the kids. It held cheap acrylic paints and a couple of canvasses. No one had used them at all.

I put the laundry aside. I sat down and got out the paints.

First, I found an image online that I liked. It was a chicken in the grass, on the website of a chicken hatchery. I sketched.

I started to paint. All I thought about was the chicken, the colors, where the light and dark were, how to make it look like the picture.

I didn’t think about the cold, dark winter, or being stuck in this house, or the angry words and actions that flowed regularly, or our finances, or my lack of employment. I didn’t think about getting smaller and smaller. I thought about that chicken and I painted. I tried to really see her, with an artist’s eye.

It took a couple days to finish. I added gold metallic paint for fun. I posted her on Facebook.

I called her a Magic Chicken.

And so she was.