Art and life

I just watched this slideshow about Van Gogh. I've never really been a fan of the man - or of his paintings, I should say. They either scared me, disturbed me, or left me a little bit cold and confused. Which was fine, a lot of art does that. Then I watched the slideshow. I'm not sure what the legal requirements are for showing paintings like these, but I'm going to put my favourite one up here and use their subtitle, I figure that ought to cover it, right? If anyone knows otherwise, let me know so I can take it down. (You should check out the essay, too. I love the boats picture and the Italian woman, and I can't explain how much I like this bedroom picture without at least a reference to how much I hate the one after it. Also, Slate rocks, especially Andy Bowers - rockage.)

Vincent Van Gogh, The Bedroom, 1889. Image courtesy Art Institute of Chicago and Neue Galerie, New York.

I saw that and I read the essay and I thought: you know, I think he's after what I'm after. What we're after. What I read so many posts about every day on the blogs of articulate, crafty (mostly) women. Speaking for myself, though, this is what I want.

I want a beautiful life. I want things around me to be beautiful. If that means orderly, fine, but if it means beautiful clutter, that's fine, too. Just not ugly clutter.

This is my front door from my kitchen.

I don't know why, but when I got up last

Saturday and the light was streaming

through, it made me happy.

Maybe because I was the only one in the house... I like that...

So I took a photo.

Which doesn't look anything like what

it felt like, but still...

I want to be able to see the colours and meanings of things shining through. I want to see them and feel them and make them a part of my story

This was one of many fabric hangings around one of the tents at Womad. Beautiful, non?

I want to share this with others - I want others to see the shininess I see, the colours and the beauty.

Some Shiny Things - Womad again.

My camera is shit at night...

uh, I mean, isn't it arty and pretty?

I want peace. I want a room like that where I can sit and think and look and feel. I want not to be harried and harrased, to have time to sit and think and breathe and feel and know. I want contemplation and maybe even relaxation. I want to know where I fit in the world, and since that changes everyday, I need that sitting thinking time to know where my new place is.

This is a Rosella in an Apple tree

Can you see his tiny tocks?

Can you see him?

I want to be able to show these wants to people. I want to put them out there so that others can see them. Then, if they share them I would like to know about it, to know that they feel the same way, share the same world. This doesn't have to be direct - it's enough to know that there are people there who know this world, too. I don't mean in an 'I am not alone' kind of way. More in a 'we are part of something special that other people don't know about it. Isn't it beautiful?' Blogging is part of this, but so is crafting and baking and all that.

Apples from my parent's tree

Some of which are now pie.


Well... were pie...

When I looked at Van Gogh's picture I felt things I had never felt looking at a Van Gogh before. I felt calm. And happy. I felt that feeling you get when it's a lazy summer afternoon and you're lying on your bed doing nothing much, just feeling the rest of the world out there doing nothing much, too. I felt that feeling you get when everything in the room with you is something you want there, when there's nothing left to change or move and you can just look at it. The feeling you get when you seam something perfectly, or m1 perfectly, without leaving a hole, or turn the heel of your first sock. I felt good.

FO! FO! FO!

But the thing I felt the most, even though there's not that much in the picture, was light. Not as in 'I felt light'. As in 'there was light. And I felt it.' Here is what I felt:

My parent's house.

I love it.

For a comparison, there's a photo from the same angle

in this post.

'Nuff said