new awareness.

kandinsky- composition no. 4  note: this is the first painting i ever loved. 

"We lived on 82nd Street and the Metropolitan Museum was my short cut to Central Park. I wrote:

'I go into the museum
and look at all the pictures on the walls.
Instead of feeling my own insignificance
I want to go straight home and paint.'

A great painting, or symphony, or play, doesn't diminish us, but enlarges us, and we, too, want to make our own cry of affirmation to the power of creation behind the universe. This surge of creativity has nothing to do with competition, or degree of talent. When I hear a superb pianist, I can't wait to get to my own piano, and I play about as well now as I did when I was ten. A great novel, rather than discouraging me, simply makes me want to write. This response on the part of any artist is the need to make incarnate the new awareness we have been granted through the genius of someone else."
— Madeleine L'Engle (A Circle of Quiet)
we all need encouragement. do we not? well, i recently received an email from a darling reader who paralleled my writing with that of madeleine l'engle. this is the most untrue yet kind words of encouragement. i was given ms. l'engle's walking on water in high school from a mentor and art educator. i have since been inspired by her words. they are words that push me forward. here is a bit of one of her other books a circle of quiet. perhaps they will inspire you on this most amazing day. 

where there is love, there is art.