Art and the Heart

This piece of art is in our home. It's not on the wall; it's on the floor, leaning up against the wall in the entryway where all our family pictures are. I'm sure the thing is a puzzle to anyone reading this post, as it is to those who enter our house.

If I walked into someone else's home and saw this canvas hanging on the wall, I'd draw back in a shock reflex and turn to look for something more attractive. That was my reaction to it, too, the first time I saw it. But the more I look at it, the more I like it. And now I've become strangely fond of it.

Why? It depicts our son.

While he was in college his friend once took a silly picture of him with the magnifying glass up to his grin. Then another friend, an artist, saw the photo and decided to paint it. So the loud colors went onto the canvas, and the image got repeated in the background. And there we are: this awful, yet strangely attractive, lurid-colored piece depicting the goofiness of our lad. When he moved back in recently to go back to school for a different major--he hasn't been satisfied with the first one--the canvas came with him.

I've mulled over the fact that something (or someone) that at first seems ugly could eventually become something (or someone) that elicits a fond reaction. It's not in the eyes, and it's not in the sense of design or beauty. It's all in the heart.

And no, I'm not quite ready yet to hang it on the wall. But I'm getting close.