'Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it.'
- CONFUCIOUS
She stares into her phone, taps with plastic fingernails on the app that scans her face. A report comes back with what needs adjusting, what surgery is recommended, what alterations are required to be made in order to be, beautiful.
Becoming beautiful will give him a life that he could not even dream of if he were to remain ugly.
They will be cut open, stitched up and stuffed with dangerous concoctions which will eventually distort, deform and even cripple a normal body. Life will be threatened, bank accounts drained and true identity hidden. They will no longer know the truth of who they were when held in their mothers arms for the very first time.The risk of permanent damage is run.
All of this, in pursuit of a fleeting concept known as beauty. After all, beauty makes us happy.....right? Seems kind of ugly to me.
Beauty is a sure way to an easier life. We want to be beautiful, we want to live somewhere beautiful and we want beautiful partners, beautiful homes, beautiful clothes, beautiful jobs.
If only everyone was born beautiful. Lucky for that app, or not.
What is beauty? Is it something that is defined with a bunch of measurements, a golden ratio? If I re arrange my face to a certain set of measurements will I be beautiful? If I cut off parts of my body that were too big and stuck them somewhere else on myself that's too small surely that would solve my problems, better still, I could inject something foreign under my skin, into my face, breasts, skull, cheeks, lips....you name it. I could even sever some nerves. What could possibly go wrong? After all, isn't beauty, pain?
I am the first person to admit that beauty makes me happy. A serene mountain range view in the morning makes me feel peace. A sunset full of reds, orange and purples delights me and a chair painted a particular shade of pink fills me with pleasure.
A good hair day makes me smile as does a week of clear skin, however, I am not convinced that these things appear beautiful to me simply due to a golden ratio of measurements or the way they look. What about beautiful scents, beautiful tastes, beautiful feelings, beautiful sound and music! Plus we all know, what I think is just adorable might make you feel ill! (I am not going to lie, people who enjoy running just confuse me.) There is something more to this beauty thing.
I spend my days looking at things. Hours and hours of staring at brushstrokes, colours and form, deciding on what would look the most pleasing. How a tiny stroke of paint can change a face so dramatically, always looking for that one little line that can suddenly make a personality emerge from a canvas, that slight change of colour than can suddenly create sunshine to burst from the page. The look in someones eyes that says, I love you, or the dimple in someones cheek that causes delightful memories to flood into your heart. What about the wrinkles on someones face that picks up the most divine light, the smile lines that draw a path to someones happy life and the rich colours of ruddy weathered skin that have seen a thousand suns rise and set. Hair in all places with warm and inviting textures, I find all of this just stunning. I am always searching for the arrangement that will evoke the emotions that I want expressed through the piece, aiming to create a visual experience that gives the onlooker an appreciation for something uniquely beautiful. Literally painting a bridge from one persons heart to another in a way that words cannot.
I have no idea how to do that. I have no magical measurement system, no theory, no technique. I know only what is instinctually present within my feelings. Perhaps I should go to art school. However, despite my lack of knowledge, I just feel my way through and I look, I look some more and then I look again. I mix my colours, or not, and then I dab them on a canvas wherever I see fit. I sit in my big comfortable chair and I look for hours. Sometimes days, sometimes weeks or more and then after a very long time, I see something emerge. Sometimes it comes suddenly, other times it creeps in, but it always comes if I am patient. And you know what that is? Well its, beauty. When it's right I know it as it arrives with a wave of relief and total contentment. I put my brush down.......a precious moment.
Beauty to me is a feeling. It's an emotion that fills me with some kind of pleasure. It seems, real beauty stays with us forever and does not deform and disintegrate with time. Like the way you think about your favourite, most adored pet after its passing, or the memory of your true loves first kiss. Beauty is everywhere, available all the time and infinite. It's free and it's yours to have and to keep in your heart. It arrives and leaves us with memories that may exist only within you. You are the keeper of beauty and therefore you are. Perhaps you just don't feel it, don't know how to find it always, yet it is there. Beauty is as unique to the beholder as your beauty is unique.
I have a theory about all of this and it may already be out there in the world. Anyway, it goes like this.
Beauty is something we all chase in some form or another. The presence of it gives us some kind of emotion that we enjoy and want continued in our lives. Beauty and what it means to us, changes as we change. Beauty deepens emotions and emotions are key to us evolving, learning and becoming closer to intelligent compassionate beings. Beauty is a form of love and is created to be shared. Beauty attracts us to other people and them to us. Beauty connects people and when people connect, life continues. Beauty is therefore essential for the continuation of life. It's possible that beauty can even save the world!
Woah.... that was a big thought.....
Beauty mate...
Seriously, there is no need to change your exterior. Delete that app and cancel your cosmetic surgeon appointment. Go out and find something or someone to adore. Paint it, appreciate it, really look at it closely. The light, the texture, the wonder of how it even exists. Find a big comfortable chair and just look a little longer, appreciate a little more, be patient. It's everywhere and in everything and if you look at anything long enough, you will find it in yourself.
Open your hearts to beauty and you will know what it is to be happy
love
Kitty Kat x