art – Divine Ready

December 27, 2024

A Year-end Chat with Some Frenemies

Pride! Hey girl hey. Where you been? You should drop in more often. I get not wanting to overdo it, but not showing up at all isn’t cool either. Just sayin’. Give us some love. Don’t make me beg.

It’s not money that’s the root of all evil, it’s the love of it. And you really dig that root, don’t you, Greed? I’m not gonna jam you too much, cuz you have way too many friends to care. Hit me up when you need a reality check, ‘k?

I can’t with you, Wrath. Calm down! It’s something to behold watching you flare up over this or that. And it’s downright thrilling when you’re going for a righteous win for Justice. I’m all in then. But wow, it’s exhausting. Take a chill pill, because I’m going to need you rested and ready for at least the next four years.

Envy, seriously, come on. What do they have that we want? They’re not all that. I know, the golden pen dripping words faster than we can think them makes my solar plexus swirl, too, and not in a good way. Blinkers on, babe, let’s not go comparison shopping. Stay focused.

Wow, Lust, what do you mean you’re finished with me? So quickly bored, always on to the next best thing, skimming the surface instead of diving deeper where the real real lies. All right, then, your loss. But Lust? I’ll tell you when we’re finished. (Mic drop.)

Why is it always all or everything with you, Gluttony? Look, we’ve had a good—some might even say stellar—run, but I think it’s best we don’t meet so often. It’s not you. It’s me. We can be friends. We’ll still see each other on special occasions, promise. Kisses.

Sloth, OMG, losing a BFF is worse than losing a lover. I’m talking to you, Lust. No, wait, I’m talking to you, Sloth. It’s time for us to branch out again, my dear. A new year is coming and cozy and tempting as it is to hang with you all the time, it’s not healthy for either of us. Don’t worry, we’ll still be bingeing hot shows and devouring yummy books. Sure, we can invite Gluttony to join us once in a while. Maybe Temperance, too? Love you!

Best Wishes for the Best Possible New Year!

September 17, 2021

Thanks

Selfie inside-out by Luis Del Valle. To see more of Luis’s art and learn more about him visit: https://www.lovehopeart.com/

Midway through the walk from Allison Park to the George Washington Bridge there is a pair of benches that overlook the Hudson River, one facing South to the city, the other towards the Bronx. They are usually occupied, but on a recent Saturday during a gentle rain I found them free and decided to stop. That’s when I discovered that a graffiti artist had been there before me.

I’ve never cared for graffiti in nature. But on graffiti in general my thoughts have run the gamut over the years from detesting it to a desire to understand it to outright appreciation in some cases. Was that “Thanks” written on the lower right corner of the Bronx bench? No, on closer inspection it was an indecipherable word.

I continued my walk, the graffiti taking me on another walk in my mind. Years ago, I met a graffiti artist when he was painting a mural on a bridge in my neighborhood. At the time, I was writing a column called “Meet Your Neighbor” for DC North, a community paper in Washington, DC. I asked Luis if we could talk.

Luis’s family fled Nicaragua during the Contra war and eventually made their way to DC where, in the early-90s, a different sort of violence was taking place. Addicts, dealers, and gangs were prevalent in Luis’s neighborhood. When we met, he had resisted the pressure to join a gang and personally knew eight people who had been killed that year. At the same time, Luis was being pulled more deeply into art. A teacher recognized his talent and got him into the Corcoran School of Art. Less than a mile from where he lived, he told me he found a whole world he never knew existed. A mentor there encouraged him. Now a successful artist with his own family, he is active in his community and teaches young artists.

We each have so much power. With it comes opportunities to sow hope, foster growth, possibly change the trajectory of a life. Reflecting on Luis’s story, I remembered some of the people who altered my path, including the man who gave me the column that allowed me to interview Luis.

I thought about circling back to take a picture of the Bronx bench so I could decipher that word in the corner, but I decided it was better to remember my first impression. And when I got home, I took a lipstick that doesn’t get much play these days and scrawled my own graffiti across the bathroom mirror: “Thanks”.

August 7, 2021

A Surfeit of Senses

Art is a powerhouse of sensory stimulation matched only by nature–which it so often depicts–in its reputation as soul food. Recently, I had a long overdue art fix with friends that started at the MET on Saturday and ended on Sunday with the Van Gogh Immersive Experience, a multi-sensory art event.

Van Gogh purportedly had a neurological condition called synesthesia, specifically in his case, chromesthesia. British neurologist, Dr. Oliver Sacks, described synesthesia as “an immediate, physiological coupling of two sorts of sensation.” Synesthetes might equate taste with different shapes or colors with certain numbers. Red is five, two is blue, three yellow, and so on. In letters to his brother Theo, Vincent described seeing colors when he heard music.

The immersive experience channeled Van Gogh’s art through the lens of his chromesthesia in a spectacular audio-visual movie that felt not only multi-sensory, but multi-dimensional. At times, the floor seemed like it shifted underfoot or slid lower on one side. Music and light effects served as conduits from one period of his art to another and enhanced the art being projected on, not just the walls, but ceilings and floors.

Sacks devoted his life to treating, researching, and writing about neurological conditions, including synesthesia. These types of conditions are rarely celebrated in the moment, but Sacks found a way to explore and explain them to a broad audience, opening a portal to people who perceive differently, who live alternate realities. Van Gogh, who suffered from depression and mental instability unrelated to his synesthesia, took his own life at age 37 and was only recognized as an artistic genius posthumously.

We alternately crave peace and stimuli to rejuvenate us. Both coexist together in one electrically charged human body living in a magnificently connected whole. Does Van Gogh’s arc suggest a kind of transformation that we cannot foresee or control, one that begs us to perceive differently in real time and not wait for history to show the way? We can be awed right now, not dismiss the uncomfortable, but instead experience with a multi-sensory heart that asks, “What am I being shown? What can I learn? How am I connected?”