becoming

i was thinking in the shower this morning (where i do my first best thinking of the day) about becoming the artist that i know is in me. i was thinking about a story i remember hearing about the impressionists having a dinner party and toasting their mates, and defining how each one painted. it went something like: renoir paints with his heart, seurat paints with his mind, russeau paints with his imagination, monet is just an eye- but what an eye, and van gogh paints with his dick!

i think i fall into the eye category - i've always been deeply moved by nature, by what the world looks like, by light and what it does, always trying to figure out how to translate that onto a piece of paper. i have always responded deeply to great works of art.  i remember seeing michaelangelo's pieta at the new york world's fair when i was maybe 10 or so- i swooned at the beauty-the throng was gliding past on a moving sidewalk and i couldn't believe we were only given a few seconds to gaze upon this staggering work ( mike was 21 when he carved it) i could have wept and maybe did to be dragged away from it-i guess most people looked at it for the allotted 10 seconds or so and went on to the next whatever- its the only thing i remember from that day(year?) and i remember it like it happened yesterday. What is it that makes us each love what we do love in this world, that seals our fate, in a sense, because if we don't persue the beloved, we are truely lost. 

click the headline for an interesting take on the power of art for one woman.