Our Story Continues So Let's Make It Interesting

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I rummaged through a storage box of greeting cards recently and came across a stack of cards featuring work by modern artist Henri Matisse. It was a set I’d gotten years ago, and each card features one of Matisse’s famous Cut-Outs, a collaged paper medium adopted at the end of his career in the 1940s and 50s. His cutouts were composed of organic shapes he’d cut from colored paper and then affix to a background.

I pulled a few from the box and studied them, resurfacing long-ago memories. Matisse’s cut-outs are the part of his career that came before his death when he was wheelchair-bound and unable to paint or sculpt any longer. They started out as small, simple works on paper, but evolved in compositional complexity and grew to mural size.

MOMA Henri Matisse: The Cut-Out Show 2014–15

It’s been a long time since my head was immersed in the art world, a place I loved years ago when I studied it, hoped to be in it professionally, and loved so many practitioners of it from archaic to contemporary times.

When I took my first art class in undergraduate school at St. Joseph’s University in Philadelphia in the mid-80s, I fell in love with Henri Matisse. He was my first art love. I loved him so much that my first painting on a larger canvas was my rendition of his famous La Danse.

I mention St. Joe’s because the campus art building sat across the street from a world-famous art collection called The Barnes Foundation. This is the esteemed collection of Alfred C. Barnes, a self-made wealthy businessman who built his large collection of modern art starting in 1912, to eventually include 59 works by Matisse alone.

What art can do

Back then, I was able to view the collection more than a few times and was entranced by the breadth of famous artists in that old estate-turned-museum. I’d visit in the middle of a weekday, when nobody else was there, and could languish in the rooms all by myself.

Flash forward to when I finished my master’s degree in art and my husband and I were able to take our honeymoon trip, a year post-wedding. We’d gotten married right before I started the school year, so we decided to put off the trip for when we could do it right.

Half of that trip was with my husband’s family, touring eastern and western Europe, and finally St. Petersburg, Russia. I can’t imagine going to Russia now, but I’m glad I got to see it.

Before we left St. Pete’s, we stopped at the Hermitage Museum, which is like the Met or the Louvre — iconic, with an iconic collection. The day we went to the museum, I was sick with food poisoning, having vomited all morning. But I rallied — how could I miss the Hermitage? — and slowly made my way through the huge building, sweaty and queasy.

Then it happened. I turned the corner into the next gallery and there it was, La Danse, hanging enormous and completely alone on the wall in front of me.

I was in utter shock. I can still feel how crazy it was that out of nowhere I was face to face with my great inspiration. I hadn’t known the painting was in that museum, or maybe I did, and I simply forgot — but there it was. My favorite painting in all the world. I burst out crying.

This is a known response to a moving piece of art. It’s awe that crescendos to tears. It’s sort of otherworldy even though it’s all about the world.

Moving on

I had a hard time leaving that painting that day, but I moved on and I still say thank you to the crazy art gods for putting me in front of it.

Life is about moving on, continuously, regardless of whether we stomp our foot down thinking that’ll keep things in place.

Matisse spent his adult life painting and sculpting until he was forced to give it up after surgery left him bedridden or in his wheelchair. He was no longer able to handle the physical requirements of these activities. He might have given up, but he moved on.

He realized what his choices were, I suppose — he could make art differently, or not at all. Which shall he choose? He chose to continue. He revisited a method he’d used through the years to create mockups for his large paintings — paper cutouts. They were easy to reconfigure to determine composition and design.

The story continues

It’s touching and instructive to me to see how Matisse chose to handle a significant change that altered his life. He decided not to give up what he loved and knew. He decided to troubleshoot and go with Plan B.

His Plan B eventually grew to be so iconic it was reproduced onto a greeting card and came to rest in my hand. How’s that for Plan B?

What do people do when they love something so much and then it’s taken away? Sometimes they drop it from their lives forever. Sometimes they take a bit of it and make new joy out of it — transform the activity into a new version of it. Maybe they teach the activity. Maybe they do it less strenuously. Perhaps they change venues or lessen scope or read about it instead of doing it. You can always write about it! 😊

I’ve had my own share of uninvited new chapters. I suppose you could say every new chapter is a Plan B. Or maybe there really isn’t such a thing as a Plan B. Maybe it’s that we have a choice as to how the next chapter begins, and then we evolve what we’ve already grown. Whichever way things play out, we’re at the beginning of the continuation even if we don’t realize it. The story continues, and someday we’ll be reading its progression, so let’s make it interesting.