This morning, I hung a new painting on my wall. It was done by Charles Passarelli; a 92 year old artist who spends his summers up here in the Leelanau Peninsula painting and teaching workshops in watercolor.
The painting joins three others done by well known painters and they all share the same subject matter: Willowbrook Mill. That’s the wedding and event venue I own with my family and it’s a charming and beautiful space that’s stood on this land since 1879. Well known and well loved as locals and tourists alike hold memories of this place from all its incarnations through the years.
When I hung the new painting, I turned to look at the three other pieces we have of Willowbrook and it was so clear how differently each painter had seen the exact same subject. And these aren’t just painters with a small “p”. These are PAINTERS. Plein Air winners and highly sought after artists known around the country. Hell, one of them, Neil Walling, literally, wrote the book on Plein Air Painting. And there they were, painting this sweet old building.
The differences in the images were angles and locations that gave them their best view on that day in that particular light. Their styles are different, from the dreamy soft strokes of Pat’s painting to the crisp, almost photographic brilliance of shadows, light and detail in Charless’ piece.
Same subject yet different circumstances, different perspectives, different feelings. It just depends on who’s looking.
Looking at the different perspectives, I remembered doing a personal growth workshop years ago. At one point during the workshop weekend, a participant was in a conversation with the presenter about an ongoing war he was locked into with a relative. “But she’s wrong! That’s not who I am! Why does she think that? Ask anyone and they’ll tell you! I am not that kind of person!”
The presenter chuckled and then proceeded to share this gem. I paraphrase because it’s been a long freaking time since I heard it but it was so good a response that it burned into my hippocampus like the Oscar Meyer bologna jingle.
He said, “Dude. If I brought 100 people into this room who have known you at 100 different points in your life, they would tell us 100 different stories about who you are. Why? Because each experience of you is unique. It comes with a fresh perspective of who you are right this moment if they just met you. Or maybe it comes with an airport full of baggage if it’s someone like a sibling who still hasn’t resolved the missing Hot Wheels Crisis of 1970. It depends on who’s looking at you. “
And damn if that isn’t the truth. It sure as hell is when it comes to me.
To some people, I am the shoulder they lean on, the maker of tea and the bringer of the soft blanket so they can curl up and escape the world for a while. To others, I am the evil overlord who swept in and severed the ties to the free flowing cash cow that they relied on to maintain their worry free (to them) existence. Or I’m the business woman who doesn’t have a filter when it comes to getting things done that need doing. In my 20s, I had a friend who called me Frank. A little bit because of my last name. A lot because I said whatever the hell I wanted to say.
100 different people, 100 different versions of me. And every one of them is 100% accurate.
To those individuals, given the little information they had about me and given whatever the source was that gave them this information, they formed a picture that will never be changed until they actually spend time with me and dispel rumors to learn the truth.
I have a nephew who grew up far away from me and our only interactions were few and far between when he was little. Everything he thought he knew about me, he learned from my sister; a famously unreliable source. We had the opportunity to spend several days together when his own sister got married in the South and each evening, after his wife put their daughter to bed, we would sit and talk into the night.
On the last day of the wedding festivities he shook his head and said he was completely blown away at how opposite every one of his expectations about me were, given the story he had been fed all of his life. Apparently, I would have been a great character in a Stephen King novel complete with Satanic worship and veins running with hydrochloric acid. Huh.
Sadly, people’s thoughts, opinions, positions, judgements are not visible like the different views and perspectives we can see in pieces of art.
Maybe it’s why we are so drawn to art. It’s so real. There it sits for us to ponder. A painting, a sculpture, a song, a story. All the dark and light, beauty and ugliness, depth and shallowness there for our eyes and hearts and minds to do with what we will.
Many years ago, I started a project I was calling The Three Questions. These three questions would “paint” a picture of your relationship with another person. They would, if the participants were brave enough to be honest, tell you exactly what you need to know about who you are to them. And it would tell them exactly how you wish that would change.
Are you ready for the questions? Here we go…
- How do I see you?
- How do I think you see me?
- How do I wish you saw me?
That’s it. So simple. So clear. So deadly. Take a moment and think through the people who affect you in your life and just imagine their answers to these questions. And remember that their responses are coming from historical data they have about you and also where their perspective was when the data was “collected”.
I double dog dare you to do this with at least three people. Buckle up. You’re going to get a painting of yourself that will either have you crying tears of joy at the love fest or reaching for the headache meds and dark place to curl up as you rethink everything you thought was true. So, yeah. Have fun with that!
How do people see anything?
It depends on who’s looking.
Willowbrook Mill by Phil Fischer, pre-2016
Willowbrook Mill by Pat McKeon 2016
Willowbrook Mill by Neil Walling 2017
Willowbrook Mill by Charles Passarelli, 2022
https://www.philfisherfineart.com/
https://passarelli-artcom.weebly.com/
Local Leelanau Peninsula fine artist- Pat McKeon
Word Ninja Girl 