Life is full of color, everywhere we look. Actually some people carry their own rainbow, it seems. I just met a colorful lady through the eyes and art of her daughter and the collection of Kaleidoscopes she left behind…
Born in the 1920’s, this woman was full of life, color and youthful optimism. She married in 1941, had three beautiful children and passed on in 2010 (?). Her daughter, Barbi describes her like this:
“Many of the most wonderful women I know have never grown up. They have retained bubbling-over girlishness. They have relished wit, they have reveled in beauty, they have indulged in humor. They have not allowed ‘maturity’ or tragedy to age or embitter them. Youthfulness of spirit is the true reflection of optimism and optimism is the thing of which a successful life is fashioned. This sentiment is embodied by my beautiful mother, Cozy Baker. -Barbi Baker Richardson
But having never met her, the pages of her daughter’s scrapbook crafted with love unfolded the story of an amazing woman. Why was I so impacted? It’s the Kaleidoscopes. I’m staying in her home; now, a beautiful guest house on her daughter’s property and it is a shrine of color and kaleidoscopes. Literally a museum of hundreds of completely unique and fascinating kaleidoscopes, collected from around the world!
Each one I look into and slowly turn its wheel or feature, dances in beautiful circles of color and design in a completely unique way, never to be repeated again. Each moment, a splash of color, like an artist slinging paint- each stroke and painting, a once-in-a-lifetime event.
Every piece of art we create is a once-in-a-lifetime event. Every child we birth, every photograph we take, every story we write becomes its unique, once-in-a-lifetime event. So what do you have when you create passionately without thought of the big picture? A body of work that speaks so loudly, it can almost define a person. It will definitely reveal a person’s heart and personality. I’m smitten, overwhelmed, delighted, enlightened and stirred by the menagerie of kaleidoscopes all around me! It stirs my creativity, entices my curiosity, heightens my expectations and makes me want to throw color around and create!
It makes me wish I had known this amazing lady, Cozy Baker, whose life I just got a glimpse, but whose life collection of Kaleidoscopes stirs me up like watching fireworks burst into cascades of color across a night sky!
PhotoNotes: it is great to shoot kaleidoscopes with an iPhone, because the lens is so tiny, it fits perfectly in the eyepiece and you can make images and videos of the magic that happens inside!
Music by TripleScoopMusic.com: Angels of Venice, “Luna Mystica”
A Picture of Hope 