PICTURES FROM WITHIN

By Arthur H. Gunther III

ahgunther@yahoo.com

 

The painter who touches you has already made that same journey inward, for he/she takes a picture of part of the artist’s soul and renders it in form, line, color, perspective. If you get goose bumps, you get the picture.

This is a gift, which like all the special qualities any have, comes with the package at birth. Whether it is developed depends on what else happens in life – environment, family, opportunity, using free will to make the gift grow.

So, no artist, no writer, no exceptional teacher, surgeon, bus driver, trash collector, parent, citizen of the world ought ever take an ego trip and proclaim that he/she is the cat’s pajamas. You were just lucky at birth, you see, and don’t let it go to your head.

Now this does not mean everyone with a gift will open the box and take the ball and run with it. Humans are also lazy, selfish or are in hardship that dilutes the potential. So many gifts in so many people have gone unclaimed.

But when the ability is nurtured, when it is given expression, wow, can hearts pound, tears come, skin tingle and connection made. A painting that leaves you speechless or that resonates in your particular being. A novel, short story, play or poem, paintings as word pictures, expressed by the gifted ones, also recreate visits with artists’ souls.  And so you say, “Ah, that’s what I mean.”

Life can be so unfair, disheartening, troublesome, challenging while also offering great joy and goose bumps. Yet on both sides of the aisle, no matter what your emotions of the day, a painting, something written, a teacher’s great lesson, a surgeon’s saving hands, a professional’s sacrifice, a trash collector’s quiet handling of your discards in the early morning, just about anything any of us do or can do will express the gifts we all have, whatever they may be.

 

The writer is a retired newspaperman who can be reached at ahgunther@yahoo.com This essay may be reproduced.

2 thoughts on “PICTURES FROM WITHIN

  1. Barbara Frances Delo

    Thank you for a beautiful post…I always enjoyed your writing, and the insights and sensitivity found in its words…..I have long missed that since you left the Journal News.
    I also remember your son. He was a good high school friend of my son Rocky ( Ronald Charles Delo). Please say hi to him from us. I hope he, and your whole family, are well.
    Barbara Delo

    1. thecolumnrule Post author

      Thank you, Barbara. I miss my old job, too.
      Arthur mentions Rocky from time to time. I recall your son from church.

      Best to you and yours, Art

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