Brain Food #486
Simple strokes
Thoughts of the day
Good morning, and happy Friday.
When was the last time you noticed something conventionally insignificant? Despite what is there all the time, our mind has a tendency to focus and place a larger importance on what is not.
American artist Georgia O’ Keeffe was known for her large, simple paintings of natural things, such as rocks and flowers, gently nudging her viewers to change perspective, and pay attention to what has always been around them, waiting to be seen. The simplicity of her strokes strips away the complex layers of life that we so often are guilty of adding ourselves, failing to enjoy it:
“When you take a flower in your hand and really look at it, it’s your world for the moment. I want to give that world to someone else… Nobody really sees a flower – really – it is so small – we haven’t time – and to see takes time… So I said to myself – I’ll paint what I see – what the flower is to me but I’ll paint it big and they will be surprised into taking time to look at it.”
Jimson Weed/White Flower No. 1
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