beauty
- Melissa Westemeier
- Jun 26
- 3 min read
Every time I travel I wind up thinking, "Mel, you gotta make time for more beauty in your life. More art. More nature." My heart and spirit get filled when I watch a live performance or stare at a beautiful painting. My mind gets challenged and enriched when I read an excellent poem or consider a sculpture combining buttons and fibers and glass and metal. Then I return home and sink into the abyss of my regular programming. Grocery shopping. Tutoring. Volunteering. Netflix. Weeding the garden. Hiking at Purdy. Visiting Alice. Writing. Editing. Washing dishes. Doomscrolling through my news feed. Then I take another trip and feel inspired again to make more time for beauty, art, nature, culture. Later. Rinse. Repeat.
Without art, beauty, creativity what is the point? I'm so guilty of pressing the 'ol schnoz to the grindstone and forgetting to look up and take a pause to marvel at the world and the wonderful creativity people have.
I get outside regularly and appreciate the wild beauty around me, but the art...oh, the art end of life suffers here.
For my birthday I get season tickets to our local performing arts center, this provides me 5 live performances a year (yeah, it should be more like 6-7, but inevitably there's a conflict or two and we have to give away our seats to someone else). The Coven takes an annual trip to the American Players Theater once a summer, this season we're watching Picnic. I'll wander up and down Appleton's Mile of Music in August. Last week I invited a friend to catch a community theater performance of The Book of Will, a play I've long wanted to see, and you know what? It was pretty darn marvelous! The actors were terrific and I drove home feeling deeply satisfied because I got to see a good show and support local the local art scene. The experience was a good reminder I need to make time for community theater, it can fill my cup, too. Anytime people perform, whether they're acting, playing music, or dancing, there's a dynamic quality rarely found in static art forms like writing or drawing. And live performers possess real courage, too, which I find beautiful.
Since making regular excursions to the Art Garage in Green Bay, I guess I have seen more exhibits and felt inspired by people's sculptures, paintings, photography, and drawings. There are other venues I could visit in Appleton and Oshkosh, but I rarely make the time. It seems I'd rather wait until I'm on the road to make time for galleries and museums.
Last summer I went to Asheville, NC and found an astounding range of artists and available museums and galleries. When I visit my friend Lauren in Baltimore, she treats me with a visit to the BMA or The Walters Art Museum. Anytime I find myself in a metropolitan area, I'm drawn to the museums. It's a dream of mine to live in a city someday. I'd love nothing more than to indulge in regular visits to a museum like The Met or the Musee d'Orsay or the British National Museum. These places are chock full of wonders, gorgeously curated, stirring the passions of everyone passing through. Imagine going to one of these musuems whenever you wanted, for as long as you wanted, and just losing yourself in the paintings or artwork. That's a bucket list item for me one of these years. I'm going to book myself a spot somewhere like NYC or London or Paris or Florence and stay for a month. And in that month I'm going to overload my eyes and ears and mind with beauty as I visit as frequently as I wish for as long as wish.
Elevating my senses requires effort here in northeast Wisconsin, but when I do I discover my life becomes richer for it. I should read more poetry, catch more live performances, pop into a local art show or museum and pause to soak up the beauty people create.
Spill it, reader. What medium of art brings you the most pleasure? Where's your favorite haunt to get a dose of beauty?
I'm a mussum and live performance fan, too. I rarely get to the latte, but when I do I am always impressed. No matter if it's a professional or commumity theatre or concert, there is nothing like people acting/playing/singing right in front of you. When we lived in NY one of the best gifts Arthur gave me was season tickets to the American Ballet Theatre for the Wednesday matinee, which was his day off. We would drive in, have a hot dog from the cart at Lincoln Center, and enter the Met under that wonderful Chagall mural and soak in the architecture, the music, and the incredible dancing. After, we'd try a different restaurant each time for a date night…