Van Gogh - Jack W. Hunt & Associates

All artists to some extent start with the same ingredients before they start to create. Whether it’s oil, watercolor, chalk, or a simple lead pencil applied to a canvas, paper, plaster, or a cave wall with a brush, palette knife, or even a can of spray paint, the artist conjures up their unique vision of what they want to display to an intended audience and thereupon goes about their work.

One could say a court reporter is an artist in the manner in which they use the tools of a writer and their theory in capturing the spoken word, albeit unlike a painter or a musician, the real beauty and display of creativity is not reflected in the final work of a transcript, but more hidden in the creative manner in which they used and adapted their theory, briefs, macros, etc., to achieve their intended goal. The wonder and power of art in all its expressions, both large and small, is made all the more evident when one is in the presence of genius.

Such is the Beyond Van Gogh exhibit currently available at the Eastern Hills Mall in Williamsville, New York until 10/3/2021. No matter how much you have heard about Van Gogh, this is something I would recommend that you run, not walk, to see it before it closes. Broken into three sections with the last being an immersive experience of his artistry, you have the ability to see writ large how the quotidian act of putting paint to canvas can be transformed when it is done by a creative genius. So perhaps the next time you sit down before the machine think of how you can do something a little bit different than you have done it before, how with a little bit of creativity while the words may be the same the manner in which they were captured was not.

Just don’t cut off your ear in doing it …