Art extends to the living space

My uncle was an art collector -- and though I never met him, I suspect he and I are a lot alike. It's thanks to him that I see the world the way I do. When my uncle passed the same year I was born, he left his younger brother (my father) his collection. I grew up surrounded by art on every wall: there was always something to appreciate while brushing my teeth, settling under the covers, or sitting at the kitchen counter.

 

My mother tells me my uncle once said to her: "I need beauty in my surroundings. I can never be happy without it." I don't think this is a fixation reserved for art fanatics: Thoreau claimed in Walden, "There are none happy in the world but beings who enjoy freely a vast horizon". Kazantzakis, another of my spiritual mentors, noted that without visual beauty around us "there is not a single branch for the human heart to perch and sing." 

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I believe this applies to nothing more importantly than to the place we call home --- The space we've created for ourselves to find solace, to enjoy the people we love, for our hearts to perch and sing. Not everyone can commission an architect, buy a lavish home, or inherit an art collection. -But beauty is not a luxury reserved for the wealthy, it's a practice.​

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It's been often said and repeated that you can't make a silk purse from a sow's ear. -I thoroughly disagree.