The Back Garden
by RC DeWinter
Title
The Back Garden
Artist
RC DeWinter
Medium
Painting - Digital Oils-paintography
Description
Copyright 2015 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved
It has been months since I'd seen Vincent. Not once since my return from my trip to Australia had he appeared, either in a dream or anywhere else. I wasn't surprised - my life's been chaotically hectic ever since, and let's face it, Vincent's life was filled with his own inner and outer chaos. Last night, however, I was dreamwalking in an old, neglected garden way in the back of a yard I couldn't identify. Daisies and wild roses bloomed among sprangles of untamed grasses, and autumn's leftovers dotted the ground with splashes of old gold and rust. It was evident that once this had been a loved and tended plot, but had been abandoned to nature's devices for some time. Then, as I knelt to examine a patch of small blue blossoms, I sensed a presence. Looking up, there was Vincent, standing silent, on the periphery of what must have once been a border of flat stones, now mostly missing.
'Vincent!" I cried as I leapt up. "It has been too long, I'm glad to see you."
He smiled, the corners of his mouth quirking up in that small, tucked-in way they usually did.
"Yes, it has," he replied. "But you have been unsettled - here and there - with plenty to occupy more than every waking moment of the day, and I have not been well myself."
"Well, I'm happy you're here now," I said as he took my arm and we made a slow turn around the remaining flowers. "And what do you mean, you haven't been well?"
"Oh, the usual," Vincent shrugged, a slight grimace twisting his countenance. "Headaches and heartaches, never selling a thing, always needing to press Theo for more help. But what of you? I've seen you in despair before, but now you don't sleep, you smoke too much - and don't think I didn't see you drinking as well - too much and too often."
"You always know," I smiled. "But look at what's become of me - no real home, the humiliation of dependency - you know that yourself. And love -"
Here I had to pause, recalling how I'd finally strangled the fantasy I'd allowed to color everything for far too long. I was ashamed to admit how much of everything I'd created had, for years, been fuelled by a dream, an adolescent's wishing for the moon.
"Be glad you love," Vincent said fiercely. "I too have worked from love, love that blossomed and withered and blossomed again. You must never regret your feelings. They are the truth of you, whether or not those feelings are returned."
"But Vincent, it was all nothing," I began.
Here he stopped walking, and as he always did when he wanted to make a point, Vincent turned me to face him. His eyes darkened and focused and gazed into mine with an intensity that was almost palpable.
"No, no reckoning; one loves because one loves. That's all. Feel it and use it and cherish it. All art proceeds from love. And now that you have killed that which drove you for so long - oh yes, I know that too - how you flounder, seeking for inspiration, for a muse - you suffer and your work suffers. I have seen you, tossing, turning, your brain humming until dawn, hunting for the visions, the words and the will to get up and begin again."
"I will not cry this time, Vincent," I replied, staring right back at him. "Every other time you've slapped me with a truth I've fallen apart. I am beyond tears now. I am desperate. Not for love, but for peace, security, a place -"
"You talk like a bourgeois. You are an artist. We do what we must to survive," he said. "But we must always create. You cannot let the circumstances - no matter how ugly, how painful - of the outer world destroy what gives you life."
I knew Vincent was right, but how to explain the 21st century to a man who wouldn't even know the term digital art? How what I need to work as an artist is bound in wires and towers and invisible energy transmitted through the atmosphere? I sighed.
"Yes, I know we must maintain that cathedral in our souls," I answered. "And I won't bore you with the details of what is necessary for me to do that. But as for love...well..."
Vincent scowled. "Love is beyond what happens between two people. Fill your heart with love of nature, love of life, love for being here on the earth able to express what fuels you. Look at these -" he gestured toward the flowers blooming at our feet. "Even though no one cares for them or likely ever sees them, they unfold and share themselves. You must do the same...it is what you are meant to do. And now, goodbye. We shall meet again."
Everything faded and I awoke late to sunlight streaming in through a half-open shade. And here you see, in Vincent's style, what I remember of that old, neglected garden and the flowers that still bloom there.
~ copyright 2015 RC deWinter
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garden, flowers, grass, daisies, weeds, rocks, dirt, summer, neglected, van Gogh, square, square format, RC deWinter, deWinter
Uploaded
August 5th, 2015
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