Finding art that grabs us

We are blessed with a couple really good local art galleries in Sellwood. They both focus on previously owned art by Pacific Northwest artists. I’ve loved learning more about many of the wonderful artists that have made there homes in our region.

I tend to stop into each of these galleries a few times a month to keep up with their steady flow of art. One of the galleries is called, somewhat appropriately, Resale Art. Visiting the gallery recently I found myself intrigued by a piece by an artist I wasn’t familiar with.

‘St Germaine’ by Carolyn Cole

I wasn’t looking for a piece to buy, but I noticed after leaving the gallery the image stuck in my mind. I find art one of the many mysteries in life of what we are drawn to and what the artist creates. The colors and how they related to each other worked for me. But there was also something in the artists use of collage in fairly subtle ways that added dimension and intrigue to the piece. I initially thought it was an abstracted landscape but the more I looked I wasn't so sure. And then there was the title of the piece, which I couldn’t place.

I wasn’t sure what St Germaine referred to, so I found myself doing a bit of research:

There was a young woman who grew up in very challenging circumstances with a stepmother that sounds quite cruel and how kicked Germaine out to the barn to live (or die?) with the farm animals. Germaine also ended up with one hand handicapped. And yet, amidst all these challenging circumstances she found a spiritual home in her faith in God and shared her compassion with any and all in the local village. People were moved by her love to the degree the stepmother felt like she should treat Germaine better and bring her back into their home.

But Germaine decided to stay in the barn with the animals and live out her life of sharing her love and faith with others. She died young but made such an impact that she ended up being sainted sometime after her death.

As it turned out, Anna’s birthday was just around the corner and this art felt like she may love it. I showed her a picture I’d taken of it and she really liked it. And I left it at that. We then had a joint astrology reading to celebrate our upcoming birthdays with a dear old astrologer friend of ours, who is really more of a mystic I think. As he was describing one of the core energies in Anna’s life and chart he used the term wounder healer to describe her. Which for those of you who know her would find spot on.

And it all clicked with the art piece, St Germaine was a wounded healer who was a woman. The artist is a woman. And all this felt like an apt celebration for the person Anna is and the work she does. I purchased St Germaine and in looking at it more closely I liked the idea that the middle strip of vibrant mix of colors and collage is depicting our human life and experience. And all the surrounding blues can represent the spirtual dimensions of life and. how we are always surrounded by the divine nature of life regardless of what colors of life we are experiencing from moment to moment.

Now I have no idea if that is what the artist intended to depict and it doesn’t matter to me, or Anna. We each make meaning and relationship with all those facets of life we care about. And for me, a soulful home is made up of the many aspects of life that have meaning for us. And do we find those things we love, like this piece of art for us, or really, do they find us?