drmstream[writing]

Vision is the art of see­ing what is invis­i­ble to others.

Jonathan Swift

This sketch is easy to pass over.  It doesn’t con­form to our stan­dards of baby memorabilia…of pho­tographs in a lit­tle brag book or on our dig­i­tal phone, moments of “look here,” “isn’t that cute,” “ooh” and “ahh.”

The sketch is an after­thought, pen­cil on scratch paper, dashed off and sent to the infant’s par­ents a few weeks later, an artist’s offer­ing.  It’s kept in a piece of tis­sue paper, lack­ing the cer­e­mony and the con­text of a state­ment of art.

But this is a thing of beauty that cap­tures the essence of a human con­nec­tion and tran­scends time in ways that a pho­to­graph never can.  Two spir­its are present here:  the baby and the artist.  And, the inter­ac­tion between them speaks to our spirit.

We have to be will­ing to stop and lis­ten, to see the invisible.

Look at the lips, the shape of the nose, the curve of the eye.  This is force and energy at rest, sub­dued just under the surface.

This sketch doesn’t record.  It offers experience.

• Share
• Tweet
• “&title=”<?php the_title(); ?>””>