Go All-In!
I know, I know. To have the audacity to muse upon “love”. In February.
I’m as qualified to write about true love as a goldfish is able to make pancakes for brunch (roughly ripped-off from Einstein, thank you); after a few decades on the planet, I live with one rescued feline and an assortment of quasi-indestructible houseplants. It’s all part of my sci-fi loving shut-in persona.
However, a) my cat thinks I’m Totes Adorbs, and b) I propose looking for love in our appreciation of art, craft and design as we navigate this month all loaded up with Star Trek valentines and candy hearts with messages like: “I prefer the yellow blankie” and “sunbeams rock” and “no more lobster-flavored anything or I will scratch your face.”
Oh, wait, those are from the cat…
I fell in love with art and art history early on, and was really lucky to have very special high school and college instructors who each loved teaching these things. (Both named Pat, I just realized. It’s obviously part of a … Pat-tern. Ba-Dum-Bump-Crash! I’ll be here all month folks!)
So I received lots of exposure to visuals and history and concepts. Some of my favorite artists are Kandinsky, Klee, Diebenkorn, O’Keeffe (why, yes, I DID notice all those “K”’s), Van Gogh, Basquiat… and in my illustrations people often note my Picasso and Warhol influences.
Historically, I am fascinated by the creations of indigenous cultures, as so much of our ancestors’ artistic endeavors directly link to what and how we make art now. In a more recent span of history, William Morris’s idea that everything should be both beautiful and useful is connected to Steve Jobs having wanted every useful thing to also be designed aesthetically. Somewhere in-between the two, Frank Lloyd Wright also showed us how it’s done.
Even the history of color itself is fascinating. I recommend Victoria Finlay’s “Color, A Natural History of the Palette” (Random House, 2002). Regarding yellow, she uses one of my favorite quotes by one of my favorite artists about my favorite color:
“There are painters who transform the sun into a yellow spot, but there are others who … transform a yellow spot into the sun.”
~ Pablo Picasso
He made a good point about creation, as well as about a symbol that artists have represented in their art throughout time.
After much book-learning, I finally got to travel a bit and see things like The Smithsonian. And a good chunk of Italy’s mid-section. I also lived for a time in a very large city that brought international installations to its burgeoning museum. And, one time on a trip to Philadelphia, I unexpectedly found myself face-to-face with one of Robert Indiana’s “LOVE” sculptures. A very literal melding of art and love, it bridges past and present, typography and sculpture, language and culture. Seeing it was as poignant a moment for me as when I was gawking at the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.
I find it all to be so amazing, and I fall in love with art over and over again, every day. I keep art books open on my coffee table at all times. I love art. I make art. I’m a museum member wherever I live. I’m all-in.
I hope you have, or very soon find, a crush in your life that passionately fuels you in this “month of love,” and throughout your entire year!