Everyone has one. A painting you've loved for years. Maybe it's on a postcard pinned above your desk, maybe you visit it in a museum whenever you can, maybe it was on the wall of your grandparents' house. It has seen you grow up, change your mind, fall in love, get tired, start again.
Have you ever thought of writing to it?
It sounds a little absurd. And yet a letter to a painting is one of the most joyful and revealing writing exercises there is. You're not analyzing art. You're talking to an old friend.
Why it works
When you write to something, you have to decide what you feel about it. Not what the label says, not what the critics think: what it means to you. And because a painting can't answer, you're free to be completely honest, tender or funny.
People often discover, halfway through the page, that they're really writing about themselves.
How to write it
1. Choose the painting. The first one that comes to mind is usually the right one. 2. Look at it before you write. In person, on a postcard or on a screen. Five quiet minutes, noticing everything. 3. Begin with "Dear…" Address the painting itself, or a person in it: "Dear girl with the pearl earring", "Dear water lilies", "Dear little boat on the left". 4. Tell it when you met. Where were you? How old were you? What was happening in your life? 5. Tell it what you see now that you didn't see then. Paintings change because we change. 6. Ask it a question. What is she looking at? What happened after the picture was painted? 7. Thank it. For the calm, the company, the beauty, the questions.
What to do with your letter
Keep it with the postcard of the painting. Read it again in a few years and notice what's changed in you. Or, if you're brave, read it aloud the next time you visit the painting, quietly, for no one else to hear.
Letters that talk about art
The Letter & Magazine subscription sends you a letter and a postcard every month, each one built around art, with a meditation and a story, plus a seasonal issue of "(meditating) On Art". Letters from someone who also talks to paintings.
Remember to take as much time as you need, and meet me at the next one.
Love, Evi