Fairborn Schools Hall of Honor: Career achievement, community
service and high standard of character.
Inducted April 2004, Ohio
Acceptance Speech:
Thank you Julie. She is a wonderful
speaker, it’s one of her God given gifts. We all
have gifts, talents and passions. Everyone does.
Those are the true riches that make us who we are. Each
of us is made with a different mix of gifts and they are
all valid. They are given to us freely yet we each have
the responsibility to acknowledge and accept them. A gift
must be unwrapped before it can be appreciated.
I believe that everyone is an artist
deep inside. If you believe that you are made in the image
of God that does not mean what you look like. God is spirit
and a creative force. That spirit is the part of you that
is a reflection of the Master Artist. Passion is creative
energy. That’s pretty cool to think about. We all
express our creative gifts in different ways, some are
obvious, and some are not so easily recognized.
I’m standing here on stage today
with others who have followed their passion.
Art is the vehicle by which I express
my passion for nature and creativity. I’m a bit passionate
too about not going along with the crowd. Some people
may confuse that with rebellion but it actually is not.
It never made any sense to me when people told me that
it was strange or amazing for a woman to do woodworking,
build furniture, use a chain saw, build an entry door
or build a bridge. I don’t see how it has anything
to do with gender. I’ve always had the opinion that
if someone else can do something then there is no reason
why I can’t do it too.
I’ve come to know that you will
be able to do anything that you are truly interested in.
The biggest obstacles for most people are caving in to
the smallness of other people’s ideas of what is
possible and being afraid of failure. The only
real failure is not trying at all. Mistakes are not failures.
Mistakes are experiences. I made a lot of mistakes when
I was teaching myself to build furniture. In the early
days of my art career I did a lot of shows that cost me
more money than I made. Ha! I could tell you some good
stories about those days. But the biggest mistake I made
was listening to people when they told me that I should
not keep trying to do woodburning. They said ‘It
was too hard, people were never going to accept it as
a legitimate art form. I should just go back to working
in traditional media.’ So, I tried that. I started
working in pen and ink and watercolor. It was boring,
my heart wasn’t in it. I wasn’t enjoying myself.
Then I started building furniture, carving, doing metal
work. They were all fun but then I never had time to do
art. I finally realized that woodburning was my true passion
and it did not matter if it was difficult. So I went back
to doing woodburning.
Success is not how much money you make
but how much enthusiasm and energy you have to share with
others.
When I finally became successful
was when I stopped caring about whether or not my work
would ever be accepted. I prayed about it and told God
that I didn’t care if I never was recognized or accepted
by the art world and if He wanted me to be doing this
medium would He just make it a little more bearable. After
20 years of this I was so tired of working 7 days a week
16 hours a day to just make enough money to get to the
next show. You know what happened after that prayer? I
started valuing my own work more and when I did that other
people started to value it more. It seemed like all of
a sudden the world was looking at it differently but it
was actually my attitude that changed. I got back my old
philosophy of not accepting other people’s boundaries.
When Claude Monet began painting in
the impressionistic style he was ridiculed by the public
and by art critics. He didn’t let that change his
mind or squash his passion. If he had we probably never
would have heard of him. I would like to challenge and
encourage all
of you to follow your passion and not to accept limits
that others may try to put on you. Explore, discover,
experiment and share what you learn with others. And
it is never too late to start. Grandma Moses started painting
when she was 76 and was “discovered” when she
was 79. Her passion kept her going until she was 101.
Good role models are important. Seek
them out. If your circumstances in life are difficult
or even horrendous, good role models can inspire you and
empower you to see beyond the present to a hopeful future.
And in that future you will be the role model for
others.
I want to thank you for the honor of being here. There
are many, many people who worked very hard to put this
ceremony together and I thank all of you. And I want to
thank my husband Jeff, for his constant support and for
never trying to hold me back.
He’s a smart man.
Oh, I have something for you. This is
for the school. It’s a Kestrel which is a real
brown and blue Sky Hawk.
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Kathleen
Marie was recently inducted into the Fairborn Schools
Hall of Honor - this is a reprint of her acceptance speech
Other Publications about Kathleen Marie
Paint Horse Journal:
Portfolio Section
March 2004 Issue
The Magazine: www.painthorsejournal.com
Texas Country Reporter:
CBS
February 7, 2004
www.TexasCountryReporter.com
THE
SHOW
Woodcarvers Ezine:
Volume 8, Issue 1
January/February 2004
The
article
Renewing the Heart:
An Avenue of Hope, God's Gift of
Art, article by Nancy Slack, September 2003
The Magazine: www.renewingtheheart.com
The Article/articles/spiritual: CLICK
HERE
Wildlife Art Magazine:
Look for a feature article on
Kathleen in the May/June 2003 issue
Equestrian Magazine
Equestrian Artists
Dec. 2002 issue
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