The Ritual of Looking: Living With Art Beyond Décor

The other day I caught myself staring at the same painting I’ve passed by a thousand times. I had my coffee in hand, the morning a little too rushed, when suddenly I noticed a brushstroke I’d never seen before. The light was hitting it in such a way that I saw things I hadn't seen before. It felt like it had been waiting there all along, quietly patient until I was ready to see it. My husband keeps saying, every time he looks at this painting he see's something different. Now I understood what my husband was saying. (Photo below)

That’s the beauty of living with art—it invites us into what I call the ritual of looking. Every day, the piece changes. Light shifts, mood shifts, even we shift. And in that shifting, a painting becomes something more than an object on the wall. To me, it becomes a living complexion. Complicated as it is simple. It becomes a mirror.

This ritual doesn’t require analysis or art history. It asks only for presence. A few minutes of standing still, letting the colors work on you the way silence does. And over time, it spills over. You start noticing colors on a walk more vividly, or seeing patterns in the world with new eyes.

A collector once shared with me: “Your painting taught me to slow down. I look at it, and it looks back at me.”

The Edit: The ritual of looking begins the moment you allow art to look back.

There Was a Moment 48" x 60'

Chasing the art hiding in plain sight,

Barbara

Visit the Collection