When I was little, I believe in the third grade, I wrote a poem for my elementary school's poetry contest. I won first place. The poem was called, "Beauty Is", and I don't mean to toot my own horn, but the fact that a 9-year-old could describe to you the changing colors of the seasons and the ways birds chirp when they're in love, was certainly some magnificent shit. As embarrassing as it is now to see some cheesy-try-hard poem my 9-year-old self thought was pure genius, it was the moment I realized that I wanted to write. For a long time, not just in third grade. I wrote about the basics. The way people fall in love, how family is the most important factor in one's life, and all the bullshit that we see now and realize isn't a big deal. But it was to my 9-year-old self. I think we go through life understanding beauty differently. When I was 5, I thought a beautiful person looked exactly like Ariel the mermaid, and that was that. There was no compromising with my standard of perfection, because it was stuck to the image of a fish woman. Now I find a lot of people beautiful. Unconventionally beautiful people are beautiful to me. And that's not me giving myself an award on how I'm different from societies standards, it's the fact that I appreciate difference in appearance so heavily now, that I wish more than anything I wasn't so Plain Jane. I find socially aware people beautiful, and I feel a spark of happiness every time someone is able to digest the injustice in our world and make it into art, or music, or poetry. Language is beautiful to me. It's why I fell in love with writing. I follow a lot of different categories of humans on my twitter, and one is my friend, Kai. I would be honored to even say that since he lives in California and has only liked one of my tweets. I still look up to him. He is a non-binary transgender masculine who is also one of the most incredible artists I have seen over social media. I find that beautiful. That individuals can have the creativity and angst to create something so raw, that the pure act of praise is what comes from it. All I want to do when I see wonderful art is praise it. It’s a selfless act, and it’s a part of why art is beautiful to me. I’m not aware of many forms of art. I swear to god if you ask me which of Monet’s pieces is my favorite I will only know “Waterlilies” because it’s one easy word to remember. But I have seen exhibits that I have fallen in love with faster than you could say "Ariel the mermaid fits typical societal ideologies of beauty." Did I mention I find people with good humor beautiful? It’s because I don’t have one. Ronan and I went to an art talk at Clark College hosted by Julie Green, an artist that created the exhibit “The Last Supper”. She’s created thousands of plates that have illustrated the last meal prisoners asked for when they were sent to death row. She paints them in indigo blue strokes, on pure white plates. The innocence of food she leaves to the audience is heart breaking and sickening, but so beautiful and magical to see. I find that maybe I won’t find Kai’s or Julie Green’s art beautiful someday, but I do now. And maybe I will still find it strikingly raw and magical at 89, but I will continue to add beautiful things to my collection. Beautiful people, beautiful language, beautiful art.
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AuthorGrace Willcox. High school student. Likes to think of herself as cunning & witty. Probably isn't. Enjoy. Archives
March 2017
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