what i know and love about art #1

My Meme (grandma~French)

Art came to me as soon as milk. I lived with my Meme (grandmother) and she taught,made, and lived her art. I first remember a painting affecting me at approximately age three. I was hanging out in a class that she was teaching and  thumbing through an art history tome.  I fell in love with ...

 Botticelli.

For those of you who think I'm making this up, my parents have told me that I was oddly calm as a youngster. 

So it goes that I asked many questions about the motifs in "The Birth of Venus" . I wondered why men were blowing at her--they were the wind. And "why are ladies in flowered dresses giving her clothes? Is she cold from the wind? No, they are les Printemps, (the Spring)  and they are clothing her in the beauty of nature because she is naked.

Why is she naked?

Well, let's just say it was onto something else at that point. The Catholic quiet kicked in and it was bedtime!!

That is the small part of the story. In 1984, when I was 16, I spent a second summer in Europe, this time with Fairfax County schools. I had the choice of England + another country. I chose Italy because it was the smallest group, only 9 of us.

It is insufficient to tell that upon elevator doors at the Ufizzi in Florence I became weak kneed.

There it was. 
So much bigger than I ever imagined!!!

I hid tears from my classmates.
How had I missed in my studies the real scale of it?

I had a rush of so many feelings at that moment.

This is still a special image to me, for its many revelations. I think that so many people want to match their art with their decor and they should match it to their feelings both good and bad.
A search for art is as search for self and should feel like one, however uncomfortable.