(“The Divine Studio” from Hafiz – see Why I Write)
The divine studio is the mind. And the heart. And the soul. This is where art happens – for the artist and for those the artist engages.
In writing, art happening and audience engagement is through the magic of words.
I am nearly always in my studio – writing in my head and from my heart and my soul – and when I can, at my computer.
Getting others into my studio to see my art takes, first, crafted style and story that reaches out and pulls the reader in – whisking the reader on a trip to new places, to meet new people, to make new friends.
Then, it also takes “this world” connections, representation, publication, publicity…
I think of visionary Van Gogh.
Literally, his art reaches out and pulls in the viewer. His art is magic.
Oil paint is nearly gold. Yet, he used mounds of it, as if each stroke of paint wants to touch us. Vibrant and animated, the world of Van Gogh’s canvases stretch into our world, captivating us, then taking us into the world of Van Gogh’s vision – what I call “God’s eye.”
His devoted brother, Theo, financed the mounds of oil paint. And, though an art dealer, Theo was unable to find buyers for his brother’s colorful, uniquely-expressive art.
If Van Gogh had lived longer – he was only 37 when he died – he undoubtedly would have seen his art sell. And appreciated.
But, he was gone too young, taking his divine studio with him.
His canvases of stunning art, what I call his “orphaned offspring,” remain here with us.
Many years ago, after reading an excerpt from a letter by Emile Bernard describing Van Gogh’s funeral, I was moved to write a poem that placed me there as a griever, seeing the pale Van Gogh in a room of white bed sheets and white walls, with his vivid, colorful, alive art all around him.
Thick brushstrokes are called impasto. My poem, below, is entitled "Impasto on White":
Impasto on White
For
Vincent
Above your body
Expressive
Colors hover
Charged
With the life
You gave them.
“Eternal life!”
Each stroke shouts.
“Eternal life!”
We grievers
Grieve
Over your pale
Body and under your pale
Walls
Agitated
For we know we will never live
For even one fraction
Of one moment
In the force and with the focus
Of any one impasto breath
Of your orphaned offspring.
Lifting your body,
We leave your four corners
And take you into the colors
You saw with God’s eye.
Selfless,
Your children wait
To face a bleak world
And to live forever for you
In the way you never could.
“On the walls of the room where the body reposed, all his last canvases were nailed, making a kind of halo around him, and, because of the lustre of genius that emanated from them, rendering this death even more painful for us artists.”
(Excerpt from letter from Emile Bernard to G.-Albert Aurier, August 1, 1890; cited in Van Gogh: A Retrospective, edited by Susan Alyson Stein.)
If you have not yet seen the film Loving Vincent, 2017, Directed by Dorota Kobiela and Hugh Welchman, I recommend it, as it takes you into the world as if it were painted by Van Gogh.
And, finally, this excerpt from Dr. Who in which Van Gogh gets to travel time in the TARDIS to visit the Musée d'Orsay to see his art, and to hear the curator's views on his art, makes me cry every time I watch it.
Have a glorious, positive day in your own divine studio.
Mary
