LIFE…A UNIQUE WORK OF ART?

I awoke this morning to find that it was wet and freezing outside. And if it was freezing where I live, I knew it was going to be even more freezing in Camden where my cake decorating course is held. But I wasn’t going to miss it for anything – rain, hail or even snow! In fact, even my cosy warm bed and pyjamas couldn’t stop me.

Off I went to what was scheduled to be a “handmade roses” class. The teacher’s beautiful bunch of roses below is exactly what we were aiming for (or something similarly floral anyway):

We began by kneading our ready-made “flower moulding paste”, which is a pre-made icing sugar paste. We then used our fingers to roll, press and shape the paste into paper-thin petals, which would soon become our sculpted roses. We had to work at a fairly constant pace, as the paste dries very hard, and it needed to be moulded just right whilst still pliable. The only other tools required were a small paint brush and water (which we used to glue the pieces of the rose together), and a funny plastic instrument with a ball shape on the end (which helped to press the edges of the petals until they were paper-thin). After a bit more kneading, pressing, rocking and rolling, the roses actually began to take shape.

Amazingly, it all started with a simple cone and oval:

The first petal went on:

Then another and another:

Until at last, the rose had fully blossomed:

A single rose became a petite bouquet:

And I even used some “magic pixie dust” (not the technical name for the coloured icing dust, of course) to colour one of my roses a beautiful, blushing pink:

Now to chronicle how my next cupcake thought relates to life……..

A decorated cupcake is a unique work of art.

My three little roses were my very own work of art. They were not exactly like the ones my teacher or my classmates made, but they were unique to me. And I loved them!

Art is meant to be an individual thing. If all artworks looked exactly the same, imagine how boring art galleries, libraries or opera houses would be. It is the artist’s very own unique ability that turns a blob of icing, a chunk of clay, a bare piece of paper, a blank canvas, an empty music manuscript, into an amazing work of art. A blob of icing becomes a blushing rose, a chunk of clay becomes a magnificently sculptured human form, a bare piece of paper becomes a captivating epic, a blank canvas becomes an idyllic country landscape, and an empty manuscript becomes a lyrical masterpiece. The more unique an artwork is, the more exclusive and valuable it becomes. Some are even considered priceless.

I believe a person’s life is analogous to a unique work of art. Some artworks are bright and colourful, and lovely to look at; others are dark and abstract, and hard to understand – somewhat similar to a person’s life perhaps. Although different, every artwork has a value of its own. Whether it’s considered valuable by the person who created it, or by the person who may have purchased it, the fact remains that it holds value. So it is with life itself – every life is made valuable through being unique, exceptional, extraordinary, incomparable, special, uncommon, and sometimes even peculiar.

God has never made any one person identical to another. Even identical twins differ – they have distinctive personalities of course, but there is an even more interesting scientific fact about identical twins that I’ve discovered. They do not have identical fingerprints! You will find similar patterns of whirls and ridges in their fingerprints, but they will never be exactly the same! That is truly amazing.

I’ve decided to live my life as an “artwork in progress”. Creativity, hard work, God-given talent, unique characteristics, maybe even being in the right place at the right time, are some of the things which will shape our lives into a true masterpiece – just like an intricately adorned cupcake!

It doesn’t matter how different your life looks from someone else’s, it’s what you put into your life that gives it value, makes it unique and leads to it becoming memorable – akin to a rare and exclusive piece of art!