Art is to comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable.
~ Cesar. A. Cruz
I wish I lived near mountains. Barring that, I wish I lived near the ocean. Not the calm, tropical, palm trees-and-umbrella drinks ocean. The wild ocean. The ocean that thrashes and roars. The ocean that cannot be predicted or tamed or put onto postcards. The ocean that takes your breath away. I want that ocean.
That ocean cannot fit on a canvas. It can’t fit anywhere, except perhaps in one’s imagination. That ocean lives in the tides of the mind.
When I saw the painting, I didn’t see paint and color. I saw mood. Shapes caught mid-motion, held for a second, and then shifting again. Shapes that could be water or clouds or mist. Gray slopes that could be mountains.
I fell in love on the spot. Not with what the painting was, but with what it represented. I wanted to keep feeling what I felt while I looked at it.
So I bought it.
Not because I wanted to keep art contained, but to keep me feeling wild. Art isn’t about hanging pieces on a wall. At least for me, it shouldn’t be. Art is about letting what is inside out. Art is what lets the invisible be imagined. And sometimes, sometimes, letting it be seen.
