They are mementos of a happy hour of immersive color. I’d pinned the inspiration painting on my “To Paint” Pinterest board and one Sunday afternoon I knew it was time. It was time to play, sketch, blend a branch across three panels.

The backs of old calendar pages gave the size I needed, plus the paper had enough texture to take on my chalk pastels. The technical term is that the paper had tooth but who knows what that means?

The colors morphed, shimmered, stretched across their lines to join each other and the layers became new colors. When I finished, the art looked exactly as I’d hoped–even better–but then, it’s hard to go wrong with chalk pastels, fingers, and a simple black silhouette. I attached the pieces to the ugly orange wall in our sitting room and we loved the tryptic. My finger nailbeds carried the blended colors for days and I didn’t care.

Months later, I packed my Polish life into three suitcases and the colors stayed on the wall because I didn’t think I needed them.

But I missed those colors. So after one year, I asked my housemate to bring them over with her. She carefully wrapped them around a paper towel tube and hand-delivered them to me. The paper was brittle and started to crack when I unrolled them but I was careful. It was so right to see the colors on my wall again!

Now I have them in my studio. They remind me to keep playing, experimenting, trying new compositions and palettes and media. They’re ten years old now. The colors and shades have smudged around the edges but I don’t look too closely. I used them once in art class for 5th and 6th graders who also went home with colors under their fingernails.

Maybe that’s the highest use of art–to be a presence that invites play, reflects color and shape, and offers a sense of home. From the old country to the new and now familiar, we have crossed miles and seen many seasons but some things never change.