Inspire, Console, Exhilarate The Soul

What got me to thinking about the sublime Vincent van Gogh was, of all things, a meme that my great-niece shared with me of POKÉMAN.  Something as cleverly silly as that, I was thrown back into the world of van Gogh.

“A great fire burns within me, but no one stops to warm themselves at it, and passers-by only see a wisp of smoke” — Vincent van Gogh

To have felt the pain of rejection, of a non-adoring public, well, we all know how his life ended and to many, rejection is something we have had to endure and transcend.

Now, in 2016, someone thinks of van Gogh and POKÉMAN, taking the time to put him in a POKÉMAN cap and suddenly a new generation is looking at his face, his art, his torturous drive, consumed by the fire of creative energy. To some, maybe being consumed by anything, even a video game, makes them feel alive and part of a global community and consciousness, in a world of many like-minded souls.  And with that, Vincent van Gogh comes alive again, not forgotten or left only to hang in a museum.

“Art is to console those who are broken by life” — Vincent van Gogh

Maybe in this age of internet immediate gratification, of immediate notoriety, of easy access to your personal life and your art by millions of people with one single post, maybe one can offer Inspiration, Consolation and Exhilaration.

As van Gogh so well stated, “I want to touch people with my art.  I want them to say ‘he feels deeply, he feels tenderly'”, and that pretty much sums up how I feel.

With my art, my continued journey into beauty, creation, passion, all consuming love of art and the written word and all that it entails, I strive to give back to the world in the only way I know how, through my paintbrushes and my pen.

“I try more and more to be myself, caring relatively little whether people approve or disapprove”— Vincent van Gogh