Angel Boy Art Featured Artist for March

Well it is none other then our little Kodie. Who continues to love of seeing her art work on the world wide web. It also means that she is the spotlight for the newsletter. This is what we submitted and was printed in the newsletter.

March's Featured Artist

Kodie Smith

Kodie Smith is the youngest of five children. Kodie has changed our family so much and for the better. We thank the Lord each day for blessing our family with 5 wonderful children and for opening our eyes to the all the little things and the big things in the world. The excitement when Kodie finally accomplishes something that she has been working so hard to achieve, like walking at the age of 3, riding a tricycle at the age of 5, after months of working with her physical therapist to learn how to pedal the thing, the steering was another fun adventure. I think she has left a few marks in the hallways of the hospital from crashing into the wall with the tricycle. The frustration of trying to transition from trike to bike, to realize that is something that may not happen and the sadness of her outgrowing the tricycle, to the blessing of her dear friend Rishi and his Gift Foundation, buying Kodie an adaptive tricycle this past Christmas season. The joy she had as it was presented at HomeConnection’s Joyful Celebration and off she rode through the church.

To see the world through her eyes is so fun, she can find joy in the smallest of things. She is bright, energetic, funny and full of life. The years have brought us on a roller coaster of emotions, frustrations, fighting the insurance company, and many more adventures. Through it all we have grown as family.

One thing that Kodie began early was her love of coloring and drawing. Pictures that began to emerge around the age of three, she would draw what she saw and with amazing details. Although now she will draw stick people on occasion, she never began drawing people as sticks; she drew them with legs, arms and bodies and then colored on the clothes. She then discovered animals, mostly rabbits, rabbits and rabbits. Well the animals have expanded into penguins, orcas and a few other critters on occasion. She was able to go to Sea World this past summer, as we were in California for a family reunion. We figured we would take her to see real penguins. She fell in love with not only the penguins, but also Shamu. When most kids would have found it all overwhelming, she hung in there all day…but the meltdown did occur, when we had to leave. That is about the only time Kodie has meltdowns, she hates to leave places where she is having fun and seeing all sorts of things. She loves to go on adventures and we know she will never leave a stone unturned. She has a wonderful zeal for living life to the fullest. May we all learn to live life to the fullest and to take advantage of all the Lord has blessed and given us.

She also has Dee (Diane Rhodes) as her art mentor. So now Kodie gets a few emails a week, encouraging her to keep on painting and drawing. I email for Kodie, telling Dee what we have worked on.

We have sent out some inquires about having Kodie featured locally. Our biggest one and what I thought was the longest shot...we have actually heard back from. That is with KING 5 TV out of Seattle, they have a daily program called Evening Magazine. I emailed them Kodie's story including the recent things with Angel Boy Art. I submitted it through their website as a story idea. Well I heard back, we at lest made it through the initial hoop...they accepted our story idea and passed it on to the group. So now I guess we wait and see. We have also emailed some local monthly/weekly newspapers/magazines that have sections that focus on the arts.