If you need a pick-me-up in these trying times, I highly recommend reading the book, How Art Can Make You Happy, especially if you are a creative type, an art lover or an art lover wannabe.  This slim volume by Bridget Watson Payne is exploding with insightful observations on the power art has to make us simple humans genuinely happy.  Presented with humor and grace, it also discusses the various ways to view artwork whether in a museum or gallery setting or within the comfort of your own home.

What struck me most about this book is how the author connects viewing art to developing a sense of empathy.  Ms. Payne suggests that the act of putting oneself in the proverbial shoes of the artist to get a better understanding of their creative perspective is a process that we can all apply to our fellow human beings, artist or otherwise.  Ms. Payne states, “When you look at a piece of art you are seeing the reality of the person who made it.”  Accepting another person’s realness as valid as our own realness is a magnificent goal and that divine type of acceptance is in short supply in 2018.  To drive the point home, the author goes on to say, “There is no surer proof of the reality of others than the things they actually create.”