Why You Need Artistic Friends

I'm an embarrassment to the world of arts and crafts.  I've never even used a glue gun.  But when you spend a day with an extraordinarily gifted artist, you have to enter her world.

The artist enters the room wearing flip-flops decorated with bunches of green grapes--she made them for a wine-tasting party--and we all can't help but notice them.  Soon, my girls are asking about these flip-flops, and the artist says, "We can make any kind you want!"

Next thing I know, we are in Wal-Mart buying bright flip-flops.  Then we are in a craft store buying miniature birds, butterflies, orchids, and lots of jewels.  Within minutes, the artist has the girls sketching flip-flop designs.  She hands me a piece of paper and some butterflies.

I'm wondering when the cameras pop out and tell me this is all one big prank.  I don't do arts and crafts. 

But when you hang out with an artist, you learn to do artistic, whimsical, and spontaneous things.

It felt a lot like flair. 

I learned to inhabit that world, burning my fingers on hot glue and pricking myself on butterfly antennae.

Later, I wear these flip-flops outside.  Mothers and their daughters shriek with delight and want to know where we got our shoes.  I imagine a Red Sea of children parting in awe as my flip-flops walk by.  Those families are already at Wal-Mart and firing up their glue guns.  I've created a flip-flop revolution.

So I'm adding this to the list of spontaneous and supremely silly things:  dancing in my kitchen, learning double-dutch, and now, gluing butterflies on my shoes.  Living with flair means you hang around artistic people and make things every once in a while.