You know, the results I created in my grade school art classes definitely encouraged me NOT to be a painter.   In retrospect, even more than lack of talent, I didn’t have the patience to work with watercolors, oils and acrylics.  Yet, somehow, I still managed to find appreciation for the skill itself and the artists who master it.

A while back, I went  to an event where former Awkwardly Awesome guest, Mecca Rutherford, was demonstrating her texturing and painting process on canvas.  As I watched her paint, it became abundantly clear to me that I had no idea of the amount of work and talent that goes into creating her uplifting and exquisite works of art.

I was impressed by Mecca’s technique, her speed, her concentration as she gave her painting form, brush stroke by brush stroke.  

Mecca honed these very complicated skills while producing art for a large business when she was in her 20’s.  The company paid her by painting, so Mecca learned to be fast so she could put food on her table and keep gas in her car.

All these minute movements, thousands upon thousands, combine to create Mecca’s works of fine art.  Many of her pieces celebrate the South Dakota landscape.  Her paintings make extraordinary out of what is commonly seen as ordinary, often as it blurs by, viewed with half-awareness through a car window.

I marvel that Mecca not only stops to savor the magnificence and sacredness of the world around her, but that she has chosen to develop skills and techniques to translate and elevate what she sees into pieces of art that can be admired for countless years to come. I imagine her journey as an artist has taken tremendous patience, years of practice, and a willingness to do something that often doesn’t reap immediate rewards, but that only after an extended period of time creates a body of beautiful work that is vast enough to be celebrated in a show like the one she recently had at Center For Western Studies in Sioux Falls, SD, which was called “Dazzling Dakota: The Artwork of Mecca Rutherford,"

Patience can be in such short supply nowadays.  There’s so much to do, so much to worry about and the world just seems to be speeding by too fast.

Mecca’s success as an artist reminds me to appreciate how important a role patience plays in creating the lives we want for ourselves.  I’m excited to share her wisdom and vision with you.

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**Video broadcast available** on YouTube @imperfectbest

**Learn more about Jason Freeman** at AwkwardlyAwesome.com