“Gratitude. Have you filled your tank up on it? There are many reasons to do so. After all, it is free and ecological. It will put a rose tint on your day. Gratitude is the base line of your music; the rhythm that holds together the potential for your greatness.”
– Mme de Sauvignon
Celebrating Kathy Burke
I had heard of artist Kathy Burke’s portrait work years before I stepped into the job as director of a study-abroad program and discovered she was on the faculty. We became instant, and as it turns out, long-lasting friends and my admiration for her work, currently focused on the view of Notre Dame out her window (yes, she lives on the Quai de l’Hôtel de Ville!) gets a fresh squeeze of excitement with each project she undertakes.
Recently over lunch, I told Kathy how much I appreciated the way she would help me get a healthier perspective on difficult work situations. Her comment was: “Anne, that’s really what I do, listen and look. All my life I’ve been listening and looking.”
The truth of this struck me immediately. It explained not only why I sought her counsel, but how she, as an artist, has at the tips of her brushes the extraordinary ability to capture, in a few minutes’ sitting, a person’s spiritual, emotional, and psychological truth with astonishing life-likeness. The expressive accuracy of her work and the speed in which she pulls it off are breath taking. Perhaps a painter can only do this if she practices with the regularity of breathing, the habit of looking and listening.
I feel so grateful to know artist Kathy Burke and today I want to celebrate her brilliance. Please join me by watching this video interview of her “looking at and listening to” Notre Dame Cathedral.
And do peruse her website: http://www.parisportraits.com/