Conversations from the Dunedin Art Show

I met many very interesting people and had some great give and take with them during the two day affair.

Many people were especially taken with this portrait. There was a lot of emotion expressed about it. I distinctly remember one woman in particular who stared at it for an unusually long time. I finally approached her smiling and jokingly said “He’s crazy ! He is trying to kill us”.

She remained silent for a while longer, staring at it without interruption.
Then she turned to me and said:
“He is not crazy !”
“He is gifted”.

I was speechless.
To put things in perspective, this piece was painted about 1 year before this exhibition.
He seemed to be an intense child but that’s about all we knew.
About a month before the exhibition, he was tested and the results showed that he was in fact gifted.
This was a huge revelation for us.

This woman had never met him.
She had no idea what he looked like, or how he behaved.
She had no sense of how accurate or inaccurate a likeness the piece had to the child.
Yet she made her assessment very precisely.

It was hard not to be emotional.
So I asked, “how could you possibly know that ?”
“I myself had no idea when I painted it”

She said “look at his eyes. Look at the how you painted his eyes. The intensity, the focus. There is no question”.
I asked, “you came to that conclusion just from his eyes ?”
“I am a Psychologist and a teacher she said.”
“I know it when I see it”.

I can tell you I had chills. Aside from being impressed by her ability, I was also moved because it told me that the piece had captured an intangible aspect of his personality which gave me a great feeling about the effort that went into it. I could not ask for a better compliment.

We talked a bit more. I thanked her for her wonderful insight. I will never forget that moment.

I shared the story with many other folks who were looking at all the artwork, and multiple times I heard comments like “I have goosebumps”.
A couple of parents told me that they also had gifted children and were familiar with their intensity and could see it in the artwork as well.