This is Vincent Van Gogh's "Self Portrait With A Straw Hat". Ordinarily,. I would spend time discussing the artist's choices of color, the brush strokes, the way he was trying to express himself.
But not this time. This is a confession.
In the summer of 1977, I took my first high-school trip to New York City. One of the first stops was the Metropolitan Museum of Art. We had 2 whole hours to explore the collections. I knew nothing about art, but I had seen this painting in magazines and books.
It drew me in. I stared and stared at it. I just wanted to be a part of all those colors.
I got closer. There were no guards in the room, and no electronic security systems around the painting. I leaned forward and took a deep breath.
I put my finger up to the painting, and touched it. What Vincent Van Gogh painted all those years ago was now a part of my cellular structure.
A little piece of yellow paint came off and it stuck under my fingernail.
It stayed there all day, as we saw "Pippen" in a matinee on Broadway, at Mama Leone's Italian Restaurant for dinner, and later that night, at the New York State Theater, as we saw the Metropolitan Opera perform "Carmen". I fell asleep during the 3rd act. But the paint chip was still there.
When the bus dropped us off at our high school in Pennsylvania, around 4 in the morning, the paint chip was gone.
I never told anyone until I was in my 30's. And the person I told was horrified that I defaced a work of art.
Didn't think of it that way at the time. I just wanted to be a part of that beauty.
