"A Cloud Called Hope" and Jo van Gogh

I've always dreamed of collecting art.

Back when I was a college student, I took Introduction to Modern Art fall quarter my freshman year. It was one of my most favorite class in all of college. My dad was freaking out that I might become an art history major.

"Economics, Laur," he'd plead to me over the phone, "Economics."

Instead of art, I studied math and history, but my itch and interest in art never went away. Seattle has (or used to have) a rich and vibrant artist community. I am lucky to live walking distance to several galleries. Before the Boy was sent away and before the pandemic, I'd poke around them.

For the past two weeks, Vincent van Gogh has been dancing in my brain. I was re-reading parts of Range by David Epstein where the author discusses the variety of work van Gogh did before he became a painter. Epstein wrote that Van Gogh: The Life by Steven Naifeh and Gregory White was he best book he had ever read in any genre, which I found remarkable. When an author I like so strongly recommended a book, I had to read it. I went to the library and checked it out. One of my most favorite paintings is Wheat Field with Cypresses by van Gogh. When I see this painting, I understand the meaning of choice. Every painter has a blank canvas and they can choose any topic in any style in any color. The magic is in what they choose.

Last week, I read a brilliant, BRILLIANT article in the New York Times about Jo van Gogh-Bonger, Vincent van Gogh's sister-in-law. After both Vincent and Theo died, Jo became the biggest fan and advocate for Vincent's work. She is responsible for presenting Vincent's work to the world. I would love to see a movie or read a novel about her life. I imagine her alone surrounded by 400 of Vincent's paintings, trying to convince the world what she saw in them. (Note to self: Maybe I should write the novel or screenplay...#nextproject)

Which brings me back to me.

Today, I bought a painting called "A Cloud called Hope" by Hart James. It is a landscape that cuts through the bedrock or clay layer of earth in browns, followed by the greens and then a bright blue sky with a white cloud. I hung it above my bed.

When I first saw this painting, I was immediately struck by my own powerful emotions. The Boy finishes school in June and will return to Seattle for the summer, and this painting is symbolic of my own journey for the past several years, of supporting him while I also sort out my own layers of co-dependency. Co-dependency is a fancy way of saying I habitually put the needs of others before my own to the detriment of my own sense of self. This lead to my own breakdown in 2019. Slowly, I have been regaining my sense of self, but not without a lot of effort. The fact that I even bought this painting is a major part of my recovery, that I allowed myself such an indulgence as a reward and symbol of all of the crap I've been through for the past two years. The brown dirt, clay, bedrock represents my challenging past where I felt like I have been dragged through the mud and beaten down (even if some of it was self-inflicted), that whether I like it or not, will always be a part of me. In life, there isn't a chance that bad things might happen; there is certainty. Challenges will arise, and we have the choice of how we meet them. The green represents my growth over the past year and a half, and the blue sky suggests brightness. 

The cloud represents hope, hope that brighter days are ahead.