LOVE: Sharing a Goal

“Love doesn’t consist of gazing at each other, but in looking together in the same direction.”

~Antoine del Saint-Exupery

 
Because Valentine’s Day is the 14th of February, this is the month we associate with love. I want to help you get into that love spirit through writings and paintings, in both today’s blog, as well as those the rest of the month. 
All human beings give great importance to love. Euripedes, wrote, “The greatest pleasure of life is love”. Paul the Apostle wrote in I Corinthians 13:13, “And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.” Besides the shared beliefs in
•	some form of deity(ies) -something greater than ourselves, 
•	spirituality/afterlife, and
•	especially, the most emphasis on love,
as the basis of every religion. Defining love is another topic, that I’m not addressing today. (Agree? Disagree? It’s my blog, my statement/belief; please “look it up”, study and reflect/reflect/meditate for yourself.)
Most of my “Spirit Lovers” paintings are about a deep, romantic, spiritually connected, love.
Once again I’m sharing a particular reminiscence - this time through my blog- and hoping to give you more insight into my “Spirit Lovers” (sometimes also called “Forever Together”) series.
Many years ago, during an opening reception for one of my solo shows at Adagio Gallery in Palm Springs, gallery owner Ann Lewin introduced me to a couple who had driven from Los Angeles to meet me. Recently purchasing a painting from my “Spirit Lovers” series, they wanted to share with me what it meant in their lives. One of them had recently been diagnosed with a terminal illness. Soon afterwards, they went to P.S. for a get-away trip. That was when they saw “Forever Together”. Buying it immediately, they hung it on the wall of their bedroom as soon as they returned home. They told me that as they held hands, it was the first thing they looked at together each morning, and the last thing they looked at together before turning out the light every night.
A part of almost every Artist’s Statement I’ve ever written is, “My primary reason for making art is the beautiful aspect of touching others . . .showing them new ways of looking, helping them experience new or forgotten emotions, reminding both myself and the viewer that we have souls, presenting to others their own opportunities for awakening . . .as I share my own discoveries and personal epiphanies through my art.”
What an honor and a privilege when this happens. What an honor and a privilege when someone shares with me how my artwork happened in her/his/their life.