~Claude Adrien Helveticus
I grew up firmly believing the in the delusion that passion is intrinsic to life. I believed in the balanced distribution of passion more than I ever believed in the Tooth Fairy, Santa Claus, or my father's ability to steal my nose and give it back again (and almost as much as the rabid monsters under my bed) -- because how can you be alive and not experience something, anything that you desperately love? How can you be alive and not know the thing that makes you feel alive? The thing that gives you a sense of space, belonging, purpose; the thing that energizes, inspires, fulfills. The thing you do that makes you you. I think it's a part of my workaholic American culture to believe that we are defined by actions, not beliefs, aspirations or passive pleasures. The world is our oyster dammit, and we must manifest our destiny or be miserable failures not worth the fastfood we ate for lunch on the way to our second job. So my brainwashed self searched for the activity that made me want to be present. To violently tear open my senses and absorb every precious particle of the moment. The thing that would quiet my vibrant, incessant dreaming because I would finally discover that I was living one.
And dreams within dreams only occur in illogical Christopher Nolan films.
Like I tend to do in most aspects of my life, I went ass over tit, head over heels overboard with the whole passion thing. So when I started university in 2006, I chose to study theatre because I couldn't justify settling on any which one. It was like going to the supermarket to buy a jar of jam and becoming so overwhelmed with options that all sounded delicious, that instead of just purchasing a jar of grape, I turned to a career of jam tasting. Then I could taste the rhubarb strawberry, the ginger peach and the pomegranate any old time I liked. And get paid for my pleasure.
I reasoned that a life of theatre with its intimate study of human interactions was a declaration of passion for life itself. I could throw myself into any and every experience with the encouraging knowledge that (unless it was mortally dangerous) my craft would be better for it (and oh, the pleasure I took in milking the word craft). For me, theatre was a romantic exploitation of life that justified learning how to fence, how to tap dance and how to make it look like my eyeball exploded out of its socket (which earned me a few double-takes on the tap-dancing floor). Theatre helped glue my passions together in a way that made sense.
But university broke through my delusions, as every good university tends to do.
Passion is not intrinsic to life.
I found myself surrounded by people pursuing degrees about which they cared nothing and whose only hobbies were of the vicarious nature. They floated along aimlessly, drifting from one degree to the next and expressing more enthusiasm for the new brand of cereal at the supermarket than for their current coursework or its potential.
How can they live like this? How do they get out of bed? Why do they get out of bed? How are they okay with just... waiting?Waiting for life?
I just didn't understand. I have itchy feet and an antsy mind. Had I ever gotten lost in Disneyland, I would have been the kid to run off in a panicky search for her parents, and not the kid to sit down, finish her delicious double chocolate ice cream cone and wait to be found. Because I didn't understand the approach of quiescent watching, let's enjoy the snowdrops while waiting for summer to smell the roses, I failed to empathize -- which resulted in a regrettable amount of disdain, impatience and pretentious judgment on my part. I had passion, and I was doing something with my life, as opposed to... to... to just being there. Eating my ice cream, smelling snowdrops and waiting to be found.
My energy felt/feels like Kansas during tornado season -- different winds of different temperatures coming from different directions at high speeds creating brilliant, beautiful, destructive chaos over my grassy plains.
These tornadoes tore up my passion into many parts. I was lacerated between my love for writing, horses, visual arts, dancing, theatre, cooking, yoga and the idea that I could one day become a halfway decent singer. There were so many cracks in my yearning soul that not even theatre with all its horses and men could patch my Kansas field together again. And because I understand moderation about as well as I understand people with no passion, the things I loved served to add anxiety and insecurity to my life. I must do everything I love and I must give at at least 100 percent and the result... the result must be perfect.
My dreams became my burdens, as is generally the case when the value of a pursuit is attached to the result and not to the process. I just had so many burdens, and I refused to "fail" at any of them. This fear of failure turned my life into a topsy-turvy, guilt-ridden dance of "I should be..."
Whenever I practiced my singing, I thought I should be writing.
Whenever I sat down to write, I wondered How long since I practiced yoga?
Whenever I practiced yoga, I regretted Why am I so unbearably bad at dancing?
Instead of grounding, rooting, motivating me, my passions kept me from my present and I learned that having too many loves is like having no love at all.
Travel gives me a better understanding of time and creates a gentle appreciation of the appropriateness of space. Traveling focuses me here and now and helps me to sense the season.
I had a season of yoga when I stayed with Charlotte. Everything about the time and space in Buckinghamshire fostered that particular love, so I explored, focused, enjoyed that passion -- and easily created a new friend in the process. My time with Baris seems to be a season for writing, so I'm going to focus my energy on that passion and recognize that visual arts could be coming into season soon.
I think people undervalue the idea that we could live our lives doing what comes easily, naturally, gently. I don't need to spend thousands of dollars building a greenhouse so that I can grow tomatoes in the winter. I can simply enjoy fresh, juicy tomatoes in the summer when they're at their best and eat slow-cooked beef stew during the cold months. It's healthier, uncomplicated and leaves me more time to enjoy the tomatoes I've grown if I'm not occupied in greenhouse construction.
Speaking of seasons, Nice is currently raining, flooding, stair rodding, cats and dogging Matisse. Out of every artistic pore through the city's art soaked apartments and ateliers, Matisse makes his energetic, brightly colored appearance.
Matisse was a printmaker, draughtsman, sculptor and painter who was born in Le Chateau-Cambresis in 1869. At his merchant father's urging, he went off to Paris to study law in 1887, only to abandon the profession in 1889 when he discovered painting whilst recovering from appendicitis (look at the appendix being useful).
One of our most influential artists didn't touch his medium until he was 20 years old. After all the Malcolm Gladwell 10000 hours business, this late-bloomer Cinderella story gives me hope.
Soon after recovery, Matisse left his disappointed father and went back to Paris to study art at the Academie Julien, where he was greatly influenced by the French Symbolist painter, Gustave Moreau. He spent much of his time at university studying still-lifes and landscapes and being inspired by masters such as Simeon Chardin and contemporary impressionistic painters such as Edouard Manet. After graduating Academie Julien, he met an impressionistic painter who introduced Matisse to impressionism and to van Gogh.
And everything about Matisse's art changed. Right then and there.
He was labeled as a "fauvist" (a word that means "beast) when he displayed Woman with a Hat at the Salon d'Automne in 1905. His paintings were known for wild colors that disregarded the natural coloration of the subject matter.
"A pot of paint has been flung in the face of the public" one critic complained about the controversial artist.
Matisse was rather crushed by all this blunt criticism. Then Gertrude Stein became a personal patron and he decided things weren't quite so bad. Even when the Fauvist movement declined a few years after it had begun, the artist was still positive. He went to Morocco and Algiers to study primitive and Islamic art, and returned to France with a new measure of boldness in his art. Once in Paris, he spent a few years hobnobbing with Stein, Picasso, Derain, and Cezanne. His work became so popular that poor Gertrude complained that more people came to her dinner parties to see Matisse's paintings than anything else.
He settled into Nice in 1917, and his work lost a fair amount of its discordant, colorful power. His chaos collapsed into order and critics stopped complaining about pots of paint and started likening his work to wallpaper.
Then he divorced his wife, World War II broke out (like a bad case of shingles), and his only daughter was nearly killed in a concentration camp.
Color and chaos came running back to the artist like long lost friends, and Matisse published Jazz, Large Reclining Nude, and The Dance II. The critics ceased blathering on about wallpaper.
The artist died at the wise old age of 84, after having greatly influenced the modern art movement and built himself a nice little museum in the suburbs of Nice.
The event throughout Nice at the moment is called "Une Ete pour Matisse", which just means "A Summer for Matisse". Since not even the extraordinarily prolific painter can dominate the walls of galleries and museums throughout the entire city, many such galleries and museums have decided to display the work of those who inspired Matisse and to delve into subject matters that interested him.
One subject?
Palm Trees. Don't ask me why. Matisse loved the things.
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| I decided to be overly cliché and silly and take some of my own palm tree pictures in front of the museum extolling the virtues of palm trees. |
I wasn't allowed to take pictures of paintings in any of the museums, so I'm reduced to posting exterior shots. And pictures of furniture. Which I'm sure is immensely interesting to everyone.
Outside of MAMAC
Preconceptions: None today
Challenges: MAMAC! Thanks, Roger. That was a lovely challenge.
beautiful!
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