“Love and art” in my opinion and experience is the ultimate sensory experience. It titillates multiple areas of the heart, soul, and brain simultaneously. It is beautiful. In addition to the love you share, you have just one more way to express your heart to your partner. It’s the purest, rawest, form of expression because it comes from a deeper space that only artists and creatives have continual access to.
But art…is demanding. It begs for your time and attention. It requires time and care. It’s like a baby that needs constant nurturing in order to grow...in order to flourish.
Can this get in the way of love?
This is my greatest fear in loving an artist. As an artist myself, I understand that magnetic pull to constantly create. It can become your first love if it isn’t already. But where does this leave your partner? I don’t think I ever want to come second place to art. I’d never thought I’d envy art, but the possibility of this non-harmonious love triangle scares me.
As pure, and beautiful as art is, I’m almost certain that it has also too often been the cause of great pain.
As I write this, the image that keeps coming to mind is the 1961 iconic photo of Jazz legend, Louis Armstrong playing the trumpet for his wife, Lucille Wilson in front of the Sphinx and the Pyramids of Giza in Egypt. It is a heartbreakingly beautiful photo.
On one hand, I long to be her. As she sits at Louis’ feet and absorbs her husband pouring his heart out to her through the melodious sounds of the trumpet, I am almost sure that her heart is beating with passion and intense love for him. But on the other hand, I also feel empathy for her. I can only imagine how much sorrow this beautiful art has also brought to her.
Loving an artist requires patience, acceptance, understanding, forgiveness, space, and freedom.
However, I can’t help but also wonder… could my concerns about love and art be wrong?
What if the reality is that art only intensifies the love experience? What if in real life, art makes way for love? And love creates space for art? That would be ideal right?
Maybe it depends on the maturity and the ability to balance the two. Maybe in a perfect world, both partners have an understanding of what is needed to thrive in both love and art.
What if they both put each other's most essential needs first before their art?
What if they made space for the other to create most freely, giving them the kind of love that doesn’t envy but fuels their desire to create their art?
What if their love served as the most perfect muse that gives the other access to an unlimited well of inspiration?
Isn’t this the way it’s supposed to go?
