And it was all Yellow

Sophomore year of high school, I took a semester-long Asian History elective. If I had to be completely honest, I'd say that I don't remember much of what I learned during the course. I do, however, remember (in impressive detail, might I add) the artwork that adorned the walls of our classroom. Maybe because I have a photographic memory, but more likely because I spent most lectures daydreaming while staring at the walls. Of particular interest, was a poster of this Rothko, which hung on the back wall.

Now let's get a few things out in the open: I neither understood nor appreciated this piece of "art." Now sure, I like yellow and blue as much as the next guy, but I simply couldn't fathom how a canvas with splotches of primary colors could be considered art. It made me resent Rothko (and all other famous people) for being able to spit on a canvas with paint, get away with it, and worse, be dubbed prodigal.

One morning, I had arrived to class a bit early (okay fine, I regularly got to class early) and our teacher had not yet arrived. We were using another teacher's classroom for the elective, and he happened to be taking care of some stuff at his desk. Not yet aware that silence is golden, I struck up a conversation with him. "That's such a random piece of artwork," I said casually, pointing to the Rothko. He looked up. "What do you mean?" "I don't know. I just always wonder how it could be so famous. I last held a paintbrush in elementary school and I could paint that." (How much do I sound like a stereotypical unappreciative art critic?! Yeah, I wasn't even trying.)

Long story short, the teacher did not appreciate my commentary. "Excuse me? Have you ever realized the outpouring of energy created by this painting? Just stare at it for a moment. The balance of the uplifting yellow and the calming blue is genius. It's not something that just anyone can paint." I had found his reaction to be sufficiently startling, and responded by staring at the poster and feigning a new found energy (see Paragraph 2).

I had never been more happy to see my Asian History teacher walk through the door.

Fast forward nine years. This morning, in an effort to decorate my room, I decided I needed to introduce some artwork to the walls. For no reason but the fact that we have some unused blank canvases and acrylics lying around, I went the D-I-Y route. To keep it as simple as possible, I planned to paint three of the canvases yellow and the fourth as teal accent. I set aside twenty minutes for this activity. All I need to do is slap some paint on these canvases and brush over them until they're completely covered, I thought to myself as I set up my "studio" in the laundry room.

Well, it turns out that painting something yellow is fraught with opportunity to fail. Because yellow is such a light color, it's really difficult for an amateur to hide her brushstrokes. For the same reason, it also requires oodles of patience and an extremely steady hand (neither of which I have) to apply the yellow evenly over the entirety of the canvas. Then, there's the edges of the canvas. I wanted them to be yellow as well, since I don't plan on framing said "artwork." I had no idea how to hold the canvas so as to paint the edges without covering my hands in paint. So I have paint all over my hands (Let's just say that I'm no Ro-thko).

I ended up with some nicely painted canvases, but it certainly took more than brushing a few squirts of acrylics across a canvas. And somewhere along the way I gained a pretty deep appreciation for Rothko.

It's so easy, as many cognitive biases and illusions will explain, to write off (or in my case, paint off) the work of others, especially when we don't understand the effort or skill that went into it. In an increasingly D-I-Y world where anyone can create a beautifully filtered photograph or a professional-looking website, it's too easy to discount art made for art's sake. To incorrectly believe that we can do anything and everything just because someone has done it before. This is absolutely not to say that we shouldn't try our hand at new skills and forms of art (and I use art in the loosest sense of the word), but in the cases where we have no interest in taking it up ourselves, we're only harming ourselves by resisting and downplaying the beauty that surrounds us.

What I failed to understand back in high school is that while we don't necessarily need to like everything we see be it paintings, products, or the like, it's our duty as fellow humans to at least appreciate the effort that went into it. It's that appreciation that energizes us to get the best possible out of the world around us, and even better, to give the best possible to the world. It's that appreciation that should fill the canvas that is our world.