I went to the Beyond Van Gogh immersive exhibit yesterday, something I’d been looking forward to for months. Amazing. Poignant. Beautiful.

It’s an exhibit that creates connection on so many levels – spoken word, written word, linguistic diversity (English, French, Spanish), music and a beautiful visual/digital representation of his body of work. One of the greatest moments of connection was when I realized that I was part of the art. As the digital projection spread out under my feet, I was the art and the art was me. 

As we watched the presentation unfold, I was talking with my son about how artists bring forth their inner world and connect it to the outer world. Understandably, sometimes, our inner world is troubled. As the story unfolded in the exhibit, we learned that Van Gogh experienced great emotional distress  and channeled it into works of great depth and beauty. 

We all have moments of turmoil within our inner world. That is our part of our shared experience as human beings. How or if we bring that inner world forward and into the external world is where we diverge. 

Art is such a powerful medium of expression and, whether we believe it or not, we are all artists with a story to tell. Our story, pretty or not, is right there, waiting to be expressed in some fashion. Do we give it life? Speak it, write it, sing it, dance it, paint it? Or do we swallow it and hide it away?