Enjoy
Beauty
“A young
woman stood before the railing...Her slender body seemed out of all
scale in relation to a normal human body; its lines were so long, so
fragile, so exaggerated that she looked like a stylized drawing of a
woman and made correct proportions of a normal being appear heavy and
awkward beside her.”
Ayn Rand
Who doesn't love to gaze
at a beautiful woman? The whole purpose of beauty wherever it's found
is to delight our senses. When I was young, every beautiful woman
felt threatening to me—I was constantly comparing myself to her and
coming up way short. But now, in my dotage, I appreciate beauty
wherever I find it, and youthful human beauty is no exception—male
or female.
And so it has been
throughout history—though the standard for judging beauty changes
with each generation and from culture to culture. I remember, as a
child, spending hours consuming the photos in the encyclopedia and National Geographic of exotic women in faraway places—seeing bound
feet, plates in lips and ears, neck rings added to extend the length
of the neck—all in the service of beauty. Nowadays, tattoos seem to
be the major means of expression. Young women and men decorate themselves stem-to-stern in pictures of all manner of things. It's
fascinating to me to see these changes as each generation works out
for themselves what is beautiful.
This piece is called,
“Beautiful View.” I'll let you decide which view is beautiful.
The butterflies (or in this case, the papillons) are symbols of
transformation and renewal—which is what viewing beautiful scenes
and beautiful people offers us. Both are gifts to delight our eyes
and open our hearts. The danger--for us and for them--lies in never getting past the beauty. Because inside that gorgeous outer being, is an
inner being that needs to evolve. Metamorphosis is necessary for
humans as well as for butterflies.
Thank you for all the
kind and generous comments you've sent about my art. If you are in
the Asheville, NC area this coming weekend (Nov.7-11), some of it will be on
display at Lutheridge Conference Center in Arden, NC during Awakening
Soul. I'd love to see you there. We can talk metamorphosis, or just
enjoy the beauty of autumn together.
In the Spirit,
Jane
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