Tag Archives: art

Artists Keep Us Sane (and a whole lot more)

What do you think? Is art frivolous or a necessity in society?

I suppose it depends on the times, and the art. If you’re living in what feels like a mad world, then a beautiful piece of art pulls one back to remember what is still possible. Another artist might paint the ugliness of the times to try to achieve the very same thing.

Or is that true? That same painting which I may label “ugly” might be actually be “beautiful” to the artist painting it. There are a million versions of anything, depending on the lens through which it is viewed. Every person sees the same painting in a gallery just a little bit differently than the person standing next to them.

Or do they? This is true only insofar as the viewer is able see it through a lens other than the precise one that society dictated as “correct”. We are all shaped by our cultures and their group beliefs, which hone our own biases and perspectives. Those perspectives carved in the collective stone can be a very difficult thing to break out of.

Artists are used to being censored by masses that largely want to view life and the world as the one painted in the “acceptable style” of the day. Ask the French Impressionists (as just one example of an art movement), whose work was rejected by the respected art salons of the day. Different is dangerous; it generates a cognitive dissonance that most find uncomfortable. It certainly doesn’t sell.

Which bring us to money, and how we so often talk about the value of anything firstly in terms of currency. Will a society so deeply rooted in money, and the idea of outward material wealth, ever fully embrace something that feeds the inner human, not firstly the outward one? In society as it exists now, it would be easy to argue that artistic expression is merely the “icing on the cake” of life.

But what if it’s not just the icing? What if it’s actually the flour and water, the practical and necessary ingredient to create an elevated society?

Artists do not merely beautify the world, they raise questions and generate wider perspectives, and even in the face of censorship, they answer the inner call to create it. This can be in the form of a painting, music, writing, or other vehicle(s) of artistic expression.

That which flows out of the human being with urgency to be expressed, I suggest is not frivolous at all. It is an expression of the human soul, a reflection back to our inner selves where the real answers wait to be found. These, I think, are the paving stones of a brighter road forward, one that leads to a more elevated society that respects and nurtures the soul journey of the human being.

So I ask you again, “What do you think? Is art frivolous or a necessity in society?”

Create, and change the world

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I’m a firm believer that one of the easiest ways we change the world is by simply employing the creativity we were born with. You’re not creative, you say? Pshaw! I’m not buying it for a second! Think outside of the box of “painter, writer, musician”, etc. These are the artistic pursuits that we easily think of as creative, but creative is not just talent in any certain area. It is a way of being, an approach to life that can add color and vitality to anything and everything we touch. Creativity brings life alive.

Look inside yourself. There is at least one thing at which you are naturally adept, and there are likely many. You didn’t really have to learn it; you were just immediately good when you tried it. The best part is, it makes your heart happy when you do that thing.

The joy that you feel when you honor yourself vibrates outward and brings great joy to others. It also inspires them to do the same. I do believe that is a big part of life’s purpose, to express those special talents and abilities that we each carry inside of us. Create, build, and play!

You’ll be making the make the world a brighter place while you’re at it. 🙂

“Stop acting so small. You are the universe in ecstatic motion.” (Rumi)

Inspirational Creativity Quotes:

“We have to continually be jumping off cliffs and developing our wings on the way down.” ~ Kurt Vonnegut,

“Creativity is intelligence having fun.” ~ Albert Einstein

“Creativity takes courage. ” ~ Henri Matisse

“To be creative means to be in love with life. You can be creative only if you love life enough that you want to enhance its beauty, you want to bring a little more music to it, a little more poetry to it, a little more dance to it.” ~ Osho

“The painter has the Universe in his mind and hands.” ~ Leonardo da Vinci

Trees Are Family

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This postcard features a painting I created a few years ago from a trip to California, where I visited Yosemite National Park, and Muir Woods. The original is quite large, and the medium is watercolor painting, with very detailed graphite pencil work layered on top.

Being a lover of trees, I was very taken with the giant redwoods on that trip, which some years later became the setting for my fiction story The Turquoise Heart. So, the painting and the story became closely tied together. In the story, the protagonist 14-year-old Anna makes the observation to her mentor Elsu that the trees in the forest they are walking through look like a family.

“Elsu, did you notice that group of trees that we just passed? There were many very tall ones, plus a giant one like the one I hid in. They stood in a circle with their branches reaching out to each other, and there was a little tree in the middle. It was almost like they were holding hands and protecting it. They looked like a family.”

“Very good observation! You are not just imagining they are a family. They really ARE one.”

“How do you figure that?”

“Trees communicate with each other underground through their roots and fungi. They have their own intelligence. For their survival, they have learned to cooperate, not just with each other, but with other tree species, too. They are very community-minded.

“Trees share space so they will all hopefully get some sunlight. They also produce sap that feeds the fungi, which in turn feeds sugar back to other surrounding trees. That little tree you noticed is actually being nourished by the big trees. It is all one big family in the forest.”

This weekend I am offering a free copy of The Turquoise Heart if you are interested in reading it. The free download link is here.

The Trees Weep

The willow weeps,
the pine trees moan,
all Nature’s feeling it,
deep to the bone.

Humans out of sync,
not hearing their hearts,
the soul of the Earth’s
being torn apart.

“Technology’s call
mesmerized them all,
and why can’t they see,
their hate is a wall?”

The mountains watch,
their strength eons old,
the oceans too have
seen centuries unfold.

They will endure, but
will humans be here?
“It seems they don’t care,
they don’t hold us dear.”

The eleventh hour
draws swiftly nigh,
trees watch us, crying,
will this be goodbye?

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Van Gogh Tried to Show Us

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I was very fortunate to visit an immersive exhibit of Vincent van Gogh’s art in 2022. Being already a big fan, and so therefore knowing something of Vincent’s history and work, mostly I was curious about how anyone could compress the infinite experience of “Van Gogh” into limited time and space. For Vincent van Gogh is not just bigger than life because he became famous, and he did not become famous simply at the whim of some influential art dealer who could persuade his clients to open their wallets.

In actual fact, Vincent despaired that anyone would see or appreciate what he was trying to say to the world, and he died poor and believing that no one ever would. What was he trying to say to you and I? For my part, I see a message that life is big, precious, beautiful, and yes, sometimes tragic, but when we see the challenges and despair of others, we develop compassion, we become a more integral part of humanity.

Part of the exhibit was a 1/2-hour movie display of his works in an immense room, as his paintings undulated and merged in and out, coming to life as they projected onto all four walls, the color and life also spilling down and outward onto the floor and the viewers. The objective was clearly to bring the viewers inside the art, so that they could perhaps more easily feel it and become part of it. I wondered as I watched the delighted viewers, no doubt some of them experiencing Vincent’s work for the first time, what they were feeling? If I could come up with one word that would encapsulate the experience, what might that be?

The word CREATIVITY came to mind. Creativity is the very essence of who we are as humans, and we may not be able to quite put it into words, but we FEEL it. Deep down we know it as a certain truth. We ARE creative, part of a mysterious creative force, and endowed with our own creative power through our minds and hearts to manifest a better (but not yet imagined) world. There is great joy in feeling the power of that, and it showed on the faces of the viewers.

Here’s the other part of that thought. Is it possible that Vincent van Gogh’s immersive exhibits are so hugely popular right now because we know at a deep level, but not yet fully admitting it to ourselves, that there is a force at work of late that is trying to destroy our creative power? Van Gogh’s work is not just simply an antidote in troubled times, but rather it is a view of what is possible, our POTENTIAL.

I would say that is true, but it is for you to decide. I see the juxtaposition of the world they want for us, the ones who make the rules and use coercion and force to “create it”. They project a cold future of transhumanism, where we will have completely lost the warmth, love, connectedness, and most importantly the full creative potential of who we are. They are trying to convince us that we are defective, when nothing could be farther from the truth.

So my final question to you is this: What kind of world do you want to see in your future, and for the future of all children who will inherit this planet? For my part, I’m on the side of Vincent van Gogh.

Sunflower Metaphysics

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To continue yesterday’s post about Van Gogh Lighting the Darkness: It gives me great pleasure to grow things, although it’s been a few years since I’ve maintained large gardens. There is something so satisfying about dropping tiny packet seeds of life into the ground, then nurturing them to their full-blown potential. Sunflowers were among my favorite annuals, and a few of them always graced my back garden among the perennials.

Sunflowers are magnificent in full bloom, but as an artist I am also attracted to their waning fall beauty. I have drawn and painted them many times, as did Vincent Van Gogh. The other day I was searching online for a few Van Gogh images, and there are several large museums worldwide that have given open access to some in their collections. One of them is The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. (Also affectionately known as simply “The Met”.)

They have a few nice Van Gogh pieces, including one of some withered sunflowers lying on a table (Sunflowers, 1887). I have among my own art images several of withered sunflowers at the end of the season.

So here’s a question for you: Is one of the images below a “Van Gogh à la Susan Hart”, and the other “Susan Hart à la Van Gogh”? You may snicker at the suggestion of Van Gogh imitating me, however, that amusement would be based on several faulty assumptions: a) that time is linear, and since he lived before me, how could he “know about me”, and b), that he is famous and I am not, so again, even if time could move backwards linearly, how could he “know about me”?

In actual fact, fame is rather irrelevant to this thought exercise. My message is really about our perception of time, and our conscious awareness of everything. So…

Since time is not really linear (we just measure our lives that way) – all time actually exists at once, and our consciousness can connect to all ideas and knowledge in the ether throughout all time – it is not entirely impossible that he also “knows about me”. We are both huge lovers of sunflowers, so it’s possible (for example) that we have a connection of consciousness simply in a shared passion for giant yellow flora.

It’s a metaphysical puzzle for your Sunday, one that may hopefully make you question why we live in a world that is so intent on keeping our conscious awareness, and therefore our experience of life, so small…

“Sunflowers”, Vincent Van Gogh

A clip from “Waning Beauty”, Susan Hart