I wanted to do some blogs on some of the great art and artists of the world who have painted images that, over time, have changed the psychology of our species and helped us ask some deeper questions about our own lives and, as artists, our place in society as it is.
As many of you know, I have spent most of my life traveling the planet and experiencing some mind-boggling places and some extraordinary people from all walks and cultures. I have dived and surfed the oceans and jumped out of planes and even flown them around the world myself. Crossed the oceans on my own boat and been to many of the great art museums and iconic buildings across the world.
The one thing that I have loved doing is tracking down the many artists and places they lived at and worked. I spent some time in Arles in the south of France many years ago and visited where Van Gogh worked. I visited the yellow house where he lived and worked, but most of all I tracked down many of the locations where Vincent painted his paintings, and with the help of photos and the recollections of my own mind, I was able to stand in exactly the same places as Vincent had done a hundred years beforehand. It was an extremely emotional experience for me to know of his life and to stand in those locations. It was as though I was standing with him on those hot summer days many years ago.
I think many artists can be very much more feeling inside about life and just living. Why on earth would someone give up a good-paying job to be an artist?
I have had the opportunity in life to make much more money than I have, but to stand in those French fields in the summer once upon a time is, as I look back now, something that money could never buy for me.
That has been my life, wandering the planet and using my ability and my wits to survive and make a living out of the thing I love most in life, my ability to create. To stand in front of these great masterpieces and to walk in the shoes of those that have gone before me is life itself. I have seen many great masterpieces in my life and Starry Night is one of them. I have sat in the Minstrel’s square in Arles and thought of Vincent sitting there drinking his coffee. I have gone to those places he visited as well. Wonderful memories that I appreciate even more as I get older. If you would like, I can write more about those journeys around the world and those many wonderful people that created art and emotions that make our lives so richer now.
~ Graeme