I started to add a daily coping tip to the SQLServerCentral newsletter and to the Community Circle, which is helping me deal with the issues in the world. I’m adding my responses for each day here. All my coping tips are under this tag.
Today’s tip is to spend a few minutes looking at a piece of art and think about what you enjoy about it.
I haven’t ever been a bit art fan. However, I saw an ad for the Van Gogh Experience in 2021 and mentioned that it looked interesting to my wife. She bought tickets and last fall we went. It was cool, and hard to describe, but essentially a movie version of many pieces being drawn on walls and evolving.
I really enjoyed it, and since then, I’ve kept a Van Gogh painting as a background on my desktop, rotating with a family photo or two and my coping calendar.
Right now, I have this piece on my desktop:
This reminds me of Europe, in old time, when we have life going on. People working, a horse and carriage on a daily journey of work, perhaps going to load up the work from people washing clothes in the river.
Perhaps because I do most of the laundry, I’m glad I don’t clean clothes in a river, but at the same time, there is a level of pleasure from accomplishing something manual like this.
I’m also amazed by the brightness of colors and how they paint a picture, despite being very different in similar places. The bricks of the bridge having yellowa, greens, oranges, even a bit of blue. It’s like a vivid reminder of the richness of life. I love the way m imagination creates the details that are blurry in this style of painting. I think I see something else in the water each time I look. Sometimes it’s the plants, sometimes I see fish. Sometimes I think there are more plants than others. Sometimes I can imagine the oil slicks or pollution I see in many rivers on my travels because of boat engines.
I find myself enjoying taking a moment on these paintings, thinking how Van Gogh’s life might be different and similar to mine.