Today I was at the Frye Museum in Seattle taking in the Chronicles of Solitude: Masterworks by Vilhelm Hammershøi from SMK—The National Gallery of Denmark when in the main Gallery ( no trip to the Frye is complete without visiting my favorite paintings )

I got to watch an artist at work- I love to watch people create art- it’s like when I write, I really don’t mind having someone watching the words go from my brain to my fingers to the screen- or notebook.

Stories are meant to be shared, right?

So should the experience.

When I watched the Artist at the Museum, she became the subject of my art- in the photos I took and in the post I’m writing.

I watched her look from the painting on the wall, she looked at her own canvas and stroke by stroke I watched her recreate what she was looking at.

Writing is like that- letter by letter I recreate what I see and hear too. It’s not as simple as putting the words together- you have to be standing in the right spot, you have to chose the right color, the light has to be right- and if they come together you get a picture.

I told Luis as we watched the young woman at work on her painting-

” Sometimes I think to myself, if someone had given me the choice- you can either be a writer or an artist which would you choose?”

I have never been able to answer that question.

Today I learned to appreciate my own gift for writing- there’s this great thing that happens when I see a story in my head- I can put together words and phrases and a story appears.

I forgot until I watched the Artist at work today how much work it is, how much of yourself you have to put into what you do, how magical the experience is.

 

The Universe is made of stories, not of atoms

Muriel Rukeyse