Ordinary or extraordinary!

I recently came across the following poem and was quite taken with it! It's from the book, The Parent’s Tao Te Ching by William Martin.

Don't ask your children

to strive for extraordinary lives.

Such striving may seem admirable,

but it is the way of foolishness.

Help them instead to find the wonder

and the marvel of an ordinary life.

Show them the joy of tasting

tomatoes, apples, and pears.

Show them how to cry

when pets and people die.

Show them the infinite pleasure

in the touch of a hand.

And make the ordinary come alive for them.

The extraordinary will take care of itself.

If I had the opportunity to nurture my now adult children again, the advice in this poem would be my particular emphasis.

Much of today's culture focuses on moving beyond the 'ordinary'. Posting on social media, for some, is a quest to go 'viral'! To gain a following from a large, global audience, it's necessary to, in some way, be extraordinary!

When I apply this to painting, there's a danger that I assume that I need to go to extremes to achieve success. This might involve travelling to a beauty spot or an extraordinary place, to capture what I discover in paint. But what if the extraordinary is on my doorstep and I just haven't realised?

The phrase, 'Finding beauty in the ordinary' is a strapline on my Peter Robinson Art website, and in all my communication. It's at the heart of what I'm aiming to do. I don't need to travel far to find the extraordinary - the beautiful. I simply need to be open to see it in my surroundings! It might be sunlight highlighting a flower bed or a plant pot. It might be the drama of a stormy sky, or the graceful flight of a bird playing on the air current on a windy day. Whatever, there is beauty - the extraordinary - around us wherever we are, every day.

The painting here is of the end of a house in Douglas, Isle of Man. I originally completed a painting of the whole house, but when I cropped the reference photo I'd taken, the simple view was revealed. I then did a watercolour of this end section of the house. It's a scene most of us would walk by without a second glance. However, soon after I'd completed the painting and posted it online, several people were eager to buy it. This 'ordinary' scene was seen, by some, to be beyond 'ordinary', even extraordinary!

What is extraordinary and beautiful to be discovered in your surroundings? I wonder.