This past week has felt like a week of big loss.
Dolly Parton, Tim Curry and Yayoi Kusama each figured into my life in very different ways. I never met any of them. I didn't know them personally, and they certainly didn't know me. And yet, each left something behind that found its way into my life.
It has made me think about how strange and beautiful influence can be. We don't always know who is watching, listening, looking, or quietly absorbing something we have put out into the world. Sometimes, years later, we discover that a person we never knew has changed the way we think, the way we behave, or even the way we make our art.
Dolly Parton: How to treat people
I've always loved Dolly Parton's music, but what has stayed with me most isn't a particular song. It's the way she seems to approach being a human being.
She has achieved extraordinary success without seeming to lose her warmth or her sense of joy. She has given generously to causes she believes in, supported literacy and education, and used her success to help other people. There is something very appealing to me about that combination of happiness and generosity.
Dolly reminds me that we don't have to choose between being successful and being kind. We can enjoy our lives, celebrate what is good, and still look around us and ask, "How can I help?"
I want to be that kind of person.
I want to support the people who love me. I want to give to causes that matter to me. I want to leave people feeling a little better rather than a little worse after an encounter with me.
There is so much negativity in the world right now. So much anger, division and cruelty. Sometimes I think what we need most is a collective reminder that how we treat one another matters enormously.
Dolly gave that reminder to millions of people simply by the way she lived her life.
And so, when I think of Dolly, I think of joy—but also of generosity.
Tim Curry: Permission to be a little rebellious
My connection with Tim Curry goes back to my early teenage years, when my friends and I discovered The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
We would go to the late-night screenings at the Seville Theatre in Montreal, and we came prepared. We brought the rice. We brought the lighters. And, as I am remembering now, we even brought a cooked meatloaf with us.
Our parents had absolutely no idea.
We would throw rice at Janet and Brad's wedding, dance the Time Warp, shout back at the screen and delight in the wonderfully outrageous world of Dr. Frank-N-Furter.
We were young. Our hormones were just beginning to make themselves known. And suddenly, in the darkness of that theatre, we were encountering ideas that had previously felt forbidden or taboo: sexual identity, self-expression, pleasure, questioning convention, and the possibility that perhaps we didn't have to fit neatly into the expectations that had been handed to us.
Tim Curry's performance was outrageous, funny, provocative and completely unapologetic.
Looking back, I think that experience gave me a little courage to be a rebel.
To explore.
To question.
To be daring and forthright.
I don't think I consciously carried Dr. Frank-N-Furter into my studio years later, but I do think that spirit of questioning convention has found its way into my abstract paintings. Abstract expressionism, after all, gives me a wonderful place to trust my instincts, make unexpected choices and not worry too much about whether I'm doing things the "right" way.
Sometimes, I think we need people who show us that there are other ways of doing things.
Tim Curry was one of those people for me.
Yayoi Kusama: Following an instinct
My connection with Yayoi Kusama is the most obvious one artistically.
I have long admired her work, particularly her use of dots. There is something fascinating about taking such a simple element and repeating it across a surface until it becomes something much larger: rhythm, movement, energy, pattern and even a way of experiencing space.
That fascination eventually found its way into my own work.
I created an entire body of paintings called EFFERVESCENCE, inspired in part by Kusama's use of dots. My dots remained on the canvas, but the idea of repetition became a way for me to explore my own visual language.
But what has always interested me about Kusama goes beyond the dots.
I've been intrigued by her story, her determination to make art on her own terms, and the unconventional choices she has made throughout her life. She has followed her own artistic instincts with extraordinary persistence.
That resonates with me.
Painting is often an exercise in trusting something that I can't entirely explain. I may begin with an idea, but at some point I have to stop trying to control everything and listen to what the painting is telling me.
Sometimes instinct is all we have.
And sometimes it is enough.
What we leave behind
Three very different people.
One reminded me about kindness and generosity.
One gave me permission to question the rules.
One influenced the way I make art.
None of them knew me. And yet, each one left something in me.
That is the part of this week that I keep coming back to.
We rarely know the full reach of our influence. We don't know who might hear a song and feel less alone. Who might watch a performance and suddenly feel permission to be themselves. Who might see a painting and begin looking at the world differently.
We don't even necessarily know when we are influencing someone.
Perhaps that's one of the most hopeful things about being human: our lives can ripple outward in ways we cannot see.
This is also why the loss of people who have contributed something meaningful to the world can feel particularly heavy. At a time when there is already so much negativity around us, losing people who brought joy, courage, imagination or beauty into the world seems to leave the world just a little bit smaller.
But perhaps we shouldn't think only about what has been lost.
We can also think about what remains.
The music.
The performances.
The paintings.
The ideas.
The memories.
And all the little pieces of themselves that these people unknowingly left in people like me.
I never met Dolly Parton, Tim Curry or Yayoi Kusama.
But I am grateful that they were here.
And I hope that, in some small way, each of us can leave something behind that makes the world a little kinder, a little braver, or a little more beautiful.