graffiti
writing or drawings scribbled, scratched or sprayed illicitly on a wall or other surface in a public place

Last week I was on a graffiti tour of Bogotá in Colombia. Bogotá is considered a friendly city among the graffiti community with restaurants and cafés in the historic centre even paying artists on occasion to have their façades painted. A school in the heart of Candelaria regularly invites artists to demonstrate graffiti technique to children, using a fence surrounding the school premises as a canvas.

This hard reality does not seem to stop graffiti artists. Well aware of the temporary nature of their art, they invest in paint, take their time and pour their hearts into their work. It is perhaps even liberating knowing that you can try things out, dare to be different and truly innovative, having no guarantee of permanence. It gives one permission to experiment, make mistakes, be honest, whilst doing your best.

Are you a graffiti artist? Do you write because you love putting your thoughts down on paper and explore the library of the language? Do you compose or play music because it heals and makes you feel good? Are you an entrepreneur who is not afraid to try something on not because you are banking on that idea making you rich but because you are truly passionate about your product or service and the value it creates for your customers? Are you a teacher who loves seeing your students absorbing knowledge and going on to explore new pastures, inspired by your lessons? Are you tinkering with an app for the ingenuity of it?

What will you discover by practising your art without reward, praise or an apparent incentive? It may well be gold dust.

It's been years since I've read any poetry. Then last week I found myself easing into a 5-minute forward bend, listening to one. I was at a yin yoga practice, a slow-paced, meditative style of yoga with postures held for longer periods of time. My teacher, Norman Blair, occasionally adds a contemplative experience to a class by telling a story. 

This time he read us a poem by the German-born American writer Charles Bukowski.  Here it is:

the bluebird
there’s a bluebird in my heart that wants to get out
but I’m too tough for him,
I say, stay in there, I’m not going
to let anybody see you.

there’s a bluebird in my heart that wants to get out
but I pour whiskey on him and inhale
cigarette smoke
and the whores and the bartenders
and the grocery clerks
never know that he’s in there.

there’s a bluebird in my heart that wants to get out
but I’m too tough for him,
I say, stay down, do you want to mess me up?
you want to screw up the works?
you want to blow my book sales in Europe?

there’s a bluebird in my heart that wants to get out
                                                                                                         but I’m too clever, 
                                                                                                         I only let him out at night sometimes
                                                                                                         when everybody’s asleep.
                                                                                                         I say, I know that you’re there, so don’t be sad.

                                                                                                         then I put him back,
                                                                                                         but he’s still singing a little in there, 
                                                                                                         I haven’t quite let him die
                                                                                                         and we sleep together like that
                                                                                                         with our secret pact
                                                                                                         and it’s nice enough to make a man weep, 
                                                                                                         but I don’t weep, 
                                                                                                         do you?

I took the liberty to record my own reading of the poem, which is available here.

I travelled to New York and spent the first couple of days gorging on the treasures of Manhattan’s art museums. Met's and MOMA’s collections are enviable - Picasso, Cézanne, Matisse, Klimt, Modigliani - to give you my personal highlights. Taking it all in, I could not help but think about the talk by the philosopher Alain de Botton, I attended earlier this year.

Alain de Botton and art historian John Armstrong wrote a book Art as Therapy, proposing an idea that art has a purpose beyond aesthetic pleasure. Art may serve as therapy and help us with such difficulties as restlessness, stress, anxiety, fear, finding purpose, fulfilment and love.  

It goes like this: feeling anxious about your status? Longing for glamour? Consider Johannes Vermeer’s The Little Street 1658. The artist chose to paint simple quarters with women going about their daily work: sweeping the yard, sewing, minding children. There is no glamour on the canvas, instead, Vermeer showed preciousness of the modest life and tranquility of daily chores. If the Dutch painter chose to accentuate the beauty of the ordinary life, might his work help to lessen our status anxiety?

At MOMA I stumbled upon Henri Matisse’s Dance I. I found it impossible not to smile. There is so much joy in that painting, with dancers floating in the air, so much hope and optimism, communicated through the colours of blue and green. It is no wonder Matisse apparently referred to Dance I as "the overpowering climax of luminosity”.  

It’s not surprising that MOMA’s visitors choose to sit down and stay a while in the room with Cézanne’s Water Lilies. The painting is so enchanting in its tranquility, it allowed me to time travel through memories of summer, smelling of wild flowers and bathing in warm sunlight. I felt instantly at peace, as if after meditation. 

Alain de Botton also thinks that we are subconsciously drawn to works of art, which may help to fill in a hole or re-balance us. A while ago when I was still working in the City, I bought a print by Edd Pearman Too Eager To Please. I saw it at an art fair in London and liked it at once even before hearing its story. The artist interviewed his friends in their 20s who got jobs in the City. He asked them whether the ‘high-flying’ jobs met their expectations and how they felt about their lives. It’s true that one picture says a thousand words.