The Graden of Saint-Paul Hospital

The painting above is a Van Gogh.I have found a great website with all his works and I print the ones that I like and put them in a binder;looking at them always lifts my spirits.My daughter says,"That's what art is supposed to do,Mom." Well, I guess so.

I wasn't exposed to much art growing up and it is a pleasure to have the time now to see what I missed.I like to sit with a painting from the website and let it tell me a story.While I write the story,it usually moves me in some way.And it reveals things that are just below the surface of my mind that need to be released.It's a mysterious process.

I just love the one above,it is telling a story that I just need to write.The title of the painting is "The Garden of St-Paul Hospital".This is where Van Gogh was to spend time at the end of his life when his mind was breaking.How could someone whose colors are so alive, have been so unhinged?

A consensus has formed that Van Goh was proably bi-polar and that a certain medicine he took to control seizures also caused yellow spots to appear before his eyes.Perhaps the wonderful yellow that he recreated in his paintings.

It is tragic that he left us by his own hand.What other wonders did he have drifting around inside his soul that he could have shared? Maybe the colors and forms of his work,the beauty of it, was passed to another artist, and the wonder found its way into the world at a table in a small hut in Peru.

I like to imagine Vincent on this bench, under those crooked, strange trees.Perhaps a warm June breeze touches his face and for a moment he is at peace.

The hospital and ,I assume ,the garden are still there and I want very much to go and sit in the quiet and write.