Re: Except for certain things

Dear, dear Molly,

You had me there at 'wet dream'!!!

But, it's true...it's a new dimension of understanding when you first discover a work that takes your breath away.

And, you never forget your first time.

A man spoke to Mark Twain on a train trip.

"I wish I had never read 'Tom Sawyer'."

When he was asked why, the man replied, "So I could have again the pleasure of reading it for the first time."

I was like that with 'Peter Pan'. I read it again, at least once annually, for a number of years.

I remember once sitting bolt upright in bed on a Saturday morning, at the first paragraph of an Agatha Christie short story. She had described an old house as a person.

Since, I have read her six 'romances' that she wrote under the penname 'Mary Westmacott', and she was right to separate the group from her other works. They are special...one in particular. But I'll never forget the effect on me of that wonderful old house, the way she created it.

I'm not sure what it takes to 'connect' with an artist's work like that.

Probably some familiarity with, or imagination of, the difficulty of the medium would do it. A young violinist friend tried to explain the beauty of classical music to me that way...how the composers and musicians coax nearly impossible sounds from their instruments...harmonies that resonate in our hearts.

Stone carved so beautifully that one sees the bloom on a baby's skin and expects it to be delicate to touch.

Paint on a flat canvas that IS light and depth. We have a print of a painting where a rural family is returning home with their horses through trees, toward sunset. The remaining daylight streams around them in every depth and shade. Looking at the painting, one feels the moment, the satisfaction.

In another, called 'Calico Horses', beautiful animals canter and fly through clouds, their skins seamless paisleys.

Imagination...imagination that stuns and pleases.

So much is offered today that only stuns...even alarms...without merit.

I think of this stuff as 'product'...nothing more. Like the stuff marketed solely as 'different', to create a new 'market niche', pretending to be 'music'.

The most attractive part of it, as far as I can see, is the dazzling money the 'artist' makes. The young and gullible don't realize that the artists sell their souls to the 'industry'...for cash.

Hm...'sell your soul', where have I heard that before?

No, I think that some 'art appreciation' is only copying others.

When I was a kid, I was with a group of girls who were 'oohing' and 'aahing' over rings in a display case, pointing to this one and that one that caught their fancy.

I realized that I really did NOT like one over the others. I had never thought of jewelry before.

So, I picked one, and declared it my favorite.

Later, I began to recognize jewelry that really DID please me. But it was a personal thing, an inner response...not a 'fashion of the moment' among others.

A rare and wonderful moment, when one discovers what they really love...and who.

Thank you for beauty, Molly.

Fledgling