There's An Artist In All Of Us

by: Marguerette Gilmore
Reprinted from Reader's Digest, July 1983

       One afternoon when my husband and I were living in a little town, a friend looked out from our kitchen window and remarked, "Not much to see from here, is there?"
       The area is mostly plains, but I was surprised by her remark: I loved the view from that window. I tried to look at it with my friend's eyes – a straight-line horizon, a water tower, dozen cottonwood trees, a few houses and an expanse of wheat field covered with stubble. That was all. And yet, from the moment I first saw it, that scene had held grandeur and endless inspiration for me.
       With the bright afternoon sun shining, the wheat field was a  sea of silver ripples: cotton-candy clouds floated in an immensity of blue, and mosaics of yellows and nut-browns ringed the cottonwoods. By evening the scene would shift into sundown colors, the houses would send rays of warmth from lighted windows and the water tower, splendid at any time, would be more magnificent, holding a red light to guide the passing planes.
         I thought of all I had viewed from that window, the visual magic that had enhanced my life. Early spring would drape the  cottonwoods in wispy chartreuse, enabling July mornings to sift through bright summer-green leaves. The fields would melt into oceans of emerald and wait out the months for molten gold, all the time providing lush nesting places for meadowlarks, brown thrashers and turtledoves. The lemon-yellow moons of spring would swing from pearly-plated evening skies, and then at harvest time rich, orange ones would lurk low on the horizon.  Every day and night I would find myself fascinated by the subtle changes across the vista, like pages turning slowly toward the fall and on into winter's silent scenes of white.
          I had reaped endless inspiration from one simple  landscape, and yet my friend found it uninteresting. After she left, I thought about this difference in viewpoints. I wondered just how true is the statement, "You take the beauty to the roses."
          I know I am far from being alone in my appreciation of the  natural elegance and charm of this earth, but I wonder how many people find beauty in the usual, normal scenes, the so-called drab, monotonous ones. It is easy to appreciate the scenes that are too wonderful to ignore. But how many people feel their daily surroundings are dull and that only at vacation time or at other rare times, can they enjoy true beauty?
          It is essential, I feel, to find beauty in the ordinary settings in which we live. Great painters know this. Henri Matisse once told a friend, "I grow artichokes. Every morning I go into the garden and watch these plants. I see the play of light and shade on the leaves and I discover new combinations of color and fantastic patterns. They inspire me. Then, I go back into my studio and paint."
          The appreciation of symmetry and grace, of color combinations and aesthetic qualities in ordinary scenes, comes as a built-in feature – not only for a few chosen ones like the painters, the writers, the musicmakers and dreamers. It is a part of everyone and can be awakened so that each person, no matter how humble the surroundings, can have an abundance of it in his or her life.
           If you want more of this radiance in your life, start looking at  everything with new eyes. Think beauty, expect beauty, take beauty wherever you go. As the French writer Joseph Joubert said, "You won't find poetry (or any other form of art) unless you bring some with you." Every landscape has something to offer, even on a cloudy day in the dreariest month of the year.
           When you are tired or lonely or bored – or in a mood to experience something truly uplifting, look out the window or take a walk. Hunting the beautiful is like truly collecting paintings or  jewels of great worth, except that the intangible treasures cost you nothing – but giving of self and can never be taken from you.
            When you get started on this hunt you will make many unusual finds – an old fence draped with ivy, a slice of sunshine on a shadowy field, a sturdy banyan stretched on a purple sky. Or maybe just a path lined with pebbles becomes a wonder of shapes and designs that will intrigue the imagination. Courtless simple scenes become many-faceted diamonds spread along  your way to enrich the mind and soul.
            As you become more observing, more appreciative, new and unexpected vistas will open up. Your world will never again  seem drab. You will have discovered your own artistic self, and life will become more rewarding when you really see and appreciate the loveliness around you. When you no longer label any scene as ordinary, when you can describe a gray day a gray scene in terms of beauty, you are an artist in your own right.
            You may never write or paint or compose a song on paper  but in your heart and mind and life you will create a change that will equal nothing less than a masterpiece.