Life as Art

All my life, since I was a small girl, I’ve examined anything I saw as beautiful and I’ve studied art. Alone for hours in my parents’ lounge, I’d pore over the few Chinese paintings that were hung on the walls. I’d stare and stare and look at the expressions on the painted faces, make stories up about why that old guy with the wispy long beard had that sad look on his face. I’d examine what direction the paint strokes were laid and how colours were blended on the canvas. To this day I still look at paintings in this way. I’m that horrifying gal at galleries who crosses the red line with print above it, ‘PLEASE STAND BEHIND THE LINE’; standing so close to paintings, I could lick them. I’ve been tempted to caress paintings, but when that urge hits me, I usually have some panicked security guard ready to pounce on me, voice close to a shout, ‘Step back from the painting, miss, miss, maaam, please STEP BACK.’

Van Gogh’s work is a huge inspiration for me as a painter. I’d done my own versions of his paintings, copying his strokes, learning from him.  The first time I saw an original Van Gogh in the flesh, I wept from the beauty of it.  People in the gallery were streaming by this piece, giving it a glance, moving through the exhibit as though it were some obstacle course, while I stood there mesmerized, feet rooted like tree trunks, leaking eyes locked on this portrait of a yellow haired girl.  This is the power of art, if you allow it.  It just busts open your chest and makes you feel.

Recently I read one of Van Gogh’s biographies, and I read something that changed my perspective about everything, but especially my being a woman and a mother.    I feel so incredibly privileged to be a woman.  It changed my perspective in an instant from ‘women as underdogs in a white male system’ to ‘I’m a goddess, didja know?’  Apparently Van Gogh envied women.  Not many men did way back then, hell, not many men do now, but then he was not just any man.   He saw the ultimate value, the intrinsic value in the creative force inherent in all women, he envied that we can experience the ultimate act of creation.  We get to experience creating humans, growing them in our bellies, and raising them and witnessing metamorphosis.  I’ve always seen my children as miracles of creation, which I was a part of, but learning that my absolute hero of paint envied my experience of motherhood made me look at it again.  Look again at my life.  Zoom out big time.  And I had this moment where I saw the totality of my life of as a giant piece of art work.  My work.  I wonder if this is what happens when people see their life flash before their eyes when they near death.   I now see everything from this perspective from above, like a bird in the sky looking down at my adorable house, seeing my exquisite children, my gorgeous man, my phenomenal family of friends and all the inspiration I’ve surrounded myself with and almost every day I now weep with gratitude just like I wept when I saw that painting, at the sheer beauty in my life, and the ability to see my life as the work of art that it is.  I can’t shake this vision of beauty, and I don’t want to.  Thanks Vincent!