Recently one of my customers asked, “What prompted you to write a book about your daughter?” After all, Cedar has been gone for close to nine years, and our family has found closure and a measure of peace regarding her loss.
I thought a moment and answered, “I think Cedar would want her story to be told.” I can imagine my daughter’s voice: I had some success as an artist in only twenty years. Just think what a person could do with an extra fifty!
Besides being a memoir of Cedar’s life, this is a book for artists. Young artists, old artists, and “I want to be an artist” artists. It is the story of my daughter, a gifted child who taught herself how to draw, write and act.
Artistic triumphs blossomed throughout her short life, one after another, like a morning glory vine in early summer. Of course Cedar had many wonderful influences; a grade school teacher who encouraged our seven-year-old poet, several marvelous dance teachers and an art instructor in middle school who insisted her students not be cowed by “critics.”
But it was Cedar who spent eight hours a day drawing, writing and studying the acting and film-making techniques of the old stars like Buster Keaton and Kathryn Hepburn.
My hope is that An Uncommon Life serves as a reminder to create your own art, whatever that may be, joyfully and often.
Hello, Merry.
I bought some of your jewelry and book at the MVC in OH in February 2011 (this year). I gave some of the jewelry as a gift at an event the same night (the recipient loved it) and wear a mouse pin on my lab coat at work. What an honor to get a glimpse of Cedar’s life! I’ll be ordering the DVD for more and to help carry on her dream.
Thank you and hope to see you again next year!
Hello Alissa,
I haven’t been by for a while, apologies for not seeing your comment! And such a good one, too. I am so glad you were able to have that glimpse into her life. She would have been 30 years old this month. – Merry