This one has a beautiful bird who neither sows or reaps or writes grants or makes granola or handles HR or IT. She’s openly vulnerable, glorious, somehow protecting or maybe just celebrating the lovers in their red refuge. (Egg? or nest? or—I know I read things into Chagall in part because he was a refugee. I’m taking it as that place of creative safety that so many refugees, and all of us who resonate with their experience, long for in our souls.)
Read MoreChagall was an exile and a refugee and he painted from his heart, and his heart was horrified by the forces that were gathering people from their homes and homelands into a massive river of suffering and then expelling them into the unknown. When that happens--at least in this painting--the world turns dark.
Read MoreOne of my fundamental beliefs is that each person is as valuable as another. That’s a positive statement! I’m thankful for the reminder that refugees coming to Providence are no less important than Marc Chagall. Their emotions are no less deep or meaningful even if they lack the skill (or education or vision or money or English language) to communicate them to others
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