She's famous! Well, not really...

Maria came home months ago, so excited that one of her works had been chosen to be displayed in an artshow at Oswego College.  Last Friday was the opening reception for the show, called "Generations III"

Did I want to drive 2 hours round-trip to look at something that Maria would bring home later and show me anyway?  Not necessarily...but c'mon, her art was part of an artshow  - it just seemed so official and all (something I never accomplished, that's for darn sure), and she had been excited about this for months - how could we not go and make a little bit of a fuss? 

So we packed up the family and drove out to good ole' Oswego.

Here is a picture of the invitation we got to the event.  When we got there, there were trays of cookies, tropical punch, fresh fruit & veggies, tortilla chips, and spinach artichoke dip.  I'm not sure which the kids were more excited about - seeing Maria's artwork, or the refreshments.  Actually, I'm fairly certain it was the latter.

And here is Miss Maria in front of her artwork displayed on the wall.  She was one of two students chosen from her school to participate.  There was artwork from schools from all over the area, and included work from kids in grade school, middle school, high school and even students from the art department at Oswego State.  We tried having the whole family in there for about 2 minutes (just long enough for everyone to get a peek at Maria's picture), but it became quite clear pretty quickly that this was NOT a place for our Edward.  So Maria and I walked around and enjoyed the art while Lou kept the other two indians crazy out in the lobby, (I'm pretty sure they were doing chariot races in Edward's stroller...). 

Here's a shot of her picture up close.  She did some sort of funky stamping thing with a sponge to make the fish, and the rest was just free-hand.  I don't know that I'd call her the next Monet or anything, but I thought it was pretty neat.  I thought the whole "I'm gonna eat you" was a bit odd, but hey, that's Maria's sense of humor for ya. ;)

So it was neat to see her work up there on the wall all "official-like".  Her teacher was there to congratulate her and take some pictures with her, and Maria was so proud (and so were we!).

There are parts of Maria's personality that remind me a lot of myself, but it's been really cool to see her grow up and have some parts of her that are nothing like me - things that are all her - like her love of art and her fascination with science.  Good stuff. :)