Art & Soul

By Marie Masters

As I picked up the bigger pieces of broken glass by hand, I knew the workmen who knocked the cheap Monet print off my wall didn’t get it. That’s what hurt, not the replacement cost.

They didn’t see that art—an original in a gilded frame or a knock-off framed in pine—has the ability to transport onlookers to another world.

When it comes to artists, my heart has always belonged to Claude Monet. His blending of natural and vivid colors to capture light and life have made me a devotee. That’s why I dragged my sister with me from Detroit to Chicago one blustery winter morning in 1995 for the Monet exhibit’s only American stop.

After taking the red-eye to the Windy City, we found ourselves lining up outside The Art Institute of Chicago with a couple hundred other art lovers. None of us had tickets. One ticket-less woman from Seattle impatiently rocked back and forth, anxiously gripping to her chest the pillow she brought on the plane and later used to curl up on the museum’s front steps at 4:00 a.m. Despite the blistering wind, we art freaks were committed to withstand the cold for several more hours, even without assurance of being admitted.

When the doors finally did open, “oohs” and “ahs” rippled back to where we waited. Only six people got into the museum that frosty December morn. As bad luck would have it, we had arrived on Patron’s Day—when students were off school for the holidays, no less.

Still determined, Sue and I started down the front steps. We had learned that there were ticket scalpers behind the building. But after only a few steps, a woman approached us. “Trying to get in?”

I nodded yes, thinking she was a scalper, and prepared to dig deep.

“Enjoy,” she said, handing over two patron’s passes. It was like winning the Art Lottery. And she wouldn’t take any money (I later donated a like amount to a heat and warmth fund). She only said, “Merry Christmas” and smiled.

Seeing Monet’s Water Lilies was magical… both in the way it came about and in the way the canvas stretched out the full length and height of an exhibit wall. Witnessing this expression of pure passion, I stood there an indeterminate time. Monet was nearly blind when he painted it, but it didn’t matter. He simply made the canvas enormous… the colors of the lilies’ pink and white brighter… and the brush strokes deeper, more three-dimensional. The effect was heart-grabbing and eye-teasing. I felt its power.

The careless workmen recently renovating my home didn’t damage anything too important, I guess. The eight-by-ten print can be salvaged and re-framed. Then it can again be hung alongside other memorabilia depicting the greatest loves of my life.

Marie Masters is a Southeastern Michigan-based writer, whose fiction and non-fiction is often inspired by nature, whether it’s depicted in art or found in the state’s abundant beauty. She can be contacted at mariemasters@earthlink.net.