Do remember the moment when you first fell in love with art?
I do.
I would have been around eight years old and my parents took me to the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.
My Mom had to finally pull me away from the paintings of Claude Monet as I was truly mesmerized, having never seen something that spoke so clearly to my young romantic self. The one who would hide in her oak panelled closet to read for hours, believe in ghosts and create imaginary worlds.
I was still unformed and uninformed.
What I liked was because…well, just that. Chords were struck, simple internal music.
Slowly, I taught myself about painting and sculpture but with it came the pressure of snobbery. “Oh, I can’t possibly enjoy *fill in the blank*.” I would waiver, then abandon. Monet, Erté and Maxfield Parrish to name a few, all deemed entirely too commercial by the New York Citified version of me.
And yet the other evening, it was Mr. Parrish that came to mind as I strolled outside of Les Baux with Remi and Ben. His colors entirely lit the hills on fire without the slightest hint of menace. Or getting burnt. And so his sweet stories of possibility wrapped around me. I let them.
How grateful I am to have doubled back in some way, almost to where I started. To see, to appreciate, to wonder without caring why.
Do you remember your first brush with art? What did it give you?
Wishing you all a very fine weekend…
Your photographs are beyond stunning, Heather. I want to print them out, frame them and hang them on a wall devoted to your art (photographic and written). You are so generous to share them with us!
The Van Gogh paintings in an exhibit that came to the Portland Art Museum when I was very young were the first visual art that "cracked my heart open," as teamgloria so beautifully put it above. Although I had studied those paintings at school in preparation for the field trip to the museum, I was stunned by how deeply I was moved by seeing them. That started my lifelong habit of taking advantage of every opportunity to see art that human beings have created.
Happy New Year! Leslie
Beautiful post!
Both my parents were artists but in music, my father a composer and magnificent pianist and my mother a lyricist. My sister paints, another sister is an actor as is my daughter, and my brother is an amazing musician as well.
Art, literature and music was always a part of our lives growing up, and I couldn't tell you my exact first brush with art but I always wanted to be able to paint against my lack of talent for it…so I studied photography. To me, capturing life with my camera was the closest way I could find to express what I saw.
I never did much photography and pretty much abandoned it when I got into TV production and later music production.
Nowadays I don't do anything artistic and my creative side misses it…
Your photographs are amazing and I repeat, you use words beautifully, have you ever written a book with your photos? You should!
Happy New Year!
Sylvia S.
dearest Heather
we don't remember the first.
but we do recall the one that cracked our heart open.
it was 1998 and we had just made a momentous life decision and everything was new and tentative and frightening and exhilarating and someone we then loved took us to the Wallace Collection.
and we cracked open into a tiny shattered pieces in front of the Fragonards.
this was beauty. and gloriousness (and early teamgloria, in all probability although we didn't start writing as her until 2011) and flesh tones and palest pink Dior satin shades and silkiness and cherubs and we couldn't breathe.
we had been living in such Darkness for a long time (another story for another time).
and here it was.
Light.
My father's (an architect) numerous art albums were among my favorite children's books as long as I could remember myself, and even misused sometimes as coloring books. I was introduced to great museums collections very early. Later it distilled to a few loves at first sight and for life: Rembrandt, Monet, Renoir, Modigliani. The list has increased with time of course but these are the greatest…There are great Russian artists like M.Vrubel, V.Serov, K.Korovin late XIX-XX, less known in the world but the dearest to my heart.
A couple of years ago I stopped near one portrait by Perugino at Uffizi and couldn't move for a long while. As if those boy knew all what will happen to the mankind in the next 500 years. He was so much alive! http://www.virtualuffizi.com/uffizi1/Uffizi_Pictures.asp?Contatore=176.
That's the power of Art.
Hi Heather – I loved this post. I probably have passed many a Parrish scene and yet never thought to photograph it and write about it.
My mother would take me to the Metropolitan Museum of Art many times, but I don't think that art took hold of me til much later in life. I did have an experience like yours when I went to see the National Museum of Art – when I finally got to the Impressionists' rooms. Wow – the light coming from those paintings was incredible. I also remember seeing Van Gogh at Arles at the Met. That was an incredible exhibit. After that I couldn't get enough of him. I wanted to paint like him – but who could ever be as incredible as he was?
My visit to the Musee D'Orsay though was the highlight of my trip to France – I couldn't believe how close up you could come to a Monet (unlike the Louvre). What a beautiful museum.
Thanks for your post – I will be on the lookout for a Parrish sighting!
Linda
Ah Heather, I love this post for so many reasons. I love the description of the young you, sitting in her closet reading and creating imaginary worlds. No surprise, I think young you and young me would be kindred spirits, too. And I love the reminder of what it was like when our impressions, likes and dislikes were not filtered by the opinions of the outside world. And finally, this post touches me so because I am reading it while sitting in the kitchen of my childhood home. My dad is out of danger, something I celebrate each day, but is in a rehab center at a nearby retirement home getting stronger. Mom is having a tough time so I've moved back home for awhile. I'm thankful I can do this and for the time with them, so very thankful. But I'd be lying if I said all this wasn't extremely hard. But I'm grateful for the faith, love, grace, hope and strength that seems to find me every day even when I think I'm running out. And so today, your post. It reminds me of how my parents introduced me to art at a very young age – I can't remember a time when I didn't draw, color, and paint, they took me to art museums every chance they had, even when I dug in my heels and didn't want to go. I fell in love with portraits – Sargent, Reynolds, Gainsborough. I think I liked making up stories about the people in the paintings. Anyway, I thank you for this lovely memory and for the reminder of how much of who I am today comes from the influence of my wonderful parents. No matter what happens that will be with me always. Thanks also for the encouraging comment you left on my last post, it meant a lot. I'm keeping an eye out for little miracles and hope to resume my conversations with all my "blogland" friends very soon. Wishing you oodles of blessings in the coming year, and may art come to life for you every day! XOXO
Love this post… There has always been something about Maxfield Parrish's skies at dusk that has spoken to my heart and I too see the sky often and marvel at his ability to capture it. Beautiful- thank you!
"Simple internal music."
Simple in its entry, and for some of us, it does become internalized and we're rich for life as a result.
Complex when we try to force it, and we've lost the openness to beauty of all sorts.
The visual arts are an integral part of my life and I cannot even recall when it began. (Such a great question!) My mother was studying art history when I was a child and used to bring me to art history lectures at the university. Our home was filled with quirky art objects and sketches; my grandmother (my mother's mother) and I would draw together, always. I remember doing portraits of Baudelaire as a teenager, and being struck by a Jim Dine exhibition in Paris when I was a student there.
It is modern and contemporary art that owns my soul; artists and poets who are most accessible to my knowing; my walls are crowded with works that are precious in their journeys regardless of price or worth to anyone other than myself.
Fred Deux's graphite masterworks still bring tears to my eyes, as do the recollection and greater understanding of his work following meeting him and talking with him some years back. The whimsy of the CoBrA artists always makes me smile. De Kooning at MOMA renders me speechless, as does a stroll through Beaubourg when I am fortunate enough to get one.
LOVING the art you create of your words and your images, Heather. And wishing you and Rémi a joyful 2013.
So much beauty. So much discovery. So many questions in art
Oh, this is you…Lost in Arles / Lost in Provence… duh. Like Tabitha I was mesmerized by your experience of acting in Russia. And yes, it would be lovely to meet up for cocktails.
I came late to the world of art, although my mother's career was as a photographic colourist / photographer. She also sketched, did oil paintings, sewed beautifully, did sculpture and every craft she could think up to master. I grew up thinking that was just my mother, someone obsessed with beauty and with a lot of patience to develop skills, something quite apart from what was on offer in museums and galleries. I didn't start going to those until I came to Britain and Bill and I traveled in Europe. I would say that I began to love art when I stood in front of a Monet painting at the Louvre. I can't really cope with modern art, though I enjoy looking at it. For me, a painting I really enjoy is one that I can envision stepping into and experiencing what I see.
Thanks again for your kind words about my comments!
I am stunned by your comment, what an incredible experience, and acting -so many stones for me to unturn here, I love the comment son my blog too, if only we could all get together for cocktails somewhere.
Most of my friend's mothers are artists so it was always around me, ( and my bf now owns a gallery) but I think Frank Auerback ( sp?) and Lucien Freud's work ranks amongst the most moving for me..