“I can very well do without God both in my life and in my painting, but I cannot, suffering as I am,
do without something which is greater than I, which is my life— the power to create.”

Vincent Van Gogh, 1889

I'd tell you why Vincent moves me so, but how can I?
To witness even one of his paintings, thick with memories, heavy with melancholy, to read his words, his ability to straddle the human and the divine--well, that is a beginning.
Vincent's white iris surrounded in a field of aching colors. Green, blue, purple, orange. It dares to stand alone.

To date, I've seen 412 Van Gogh paintings, 200 or more drawings, have read his letters and walked in the fields where he painted, toasted at the same cafes where he gathered with friends, and knelt before the ivy covered gravesite where he died.

By following his journey, I've begun to understand my own.

White Iris follows M., a young woman who quits her MFA program, leaves her fiancee' and sells all her belongings to go on a quest--to see all 864 Van Goghs in the world.
She winds up in Arles, reliving Vincent's life--and Vincent is an apparition who leads her to dizzying heights, and devastating lows.

***

We shall have had enough of cynicism, skepticism, and humbug, and will want o live—more musically.
How will this come about, and what will we discover?”

Vincent Van Gogh, 1888