Author Archives: mel weatherhead

As we leave the open road…Mel Weatherhead

July 15, 2008 – 6:01 am
By mel weatherhead | Posted in Europe 2008 Comments (0)

Today, we pack our smelly bags full of our dirty clothes and get ready to head back to Canada in the morning. I think that I’m quite ready to be settled (in a way) again, though I know that as soon as it happens I’ll want to be off again, flying to some new destination.
Days on the road have been wonderful. I don’t think I could ask for a better group of people or leaders to be travelling with, but there comes a point when your body breaks down and you can no longer soak in another museum or cathedral. Perhaps my appreciation for the art, the genius and the incredible places we’ve been to will slowly soak in more over the next year, as I go into my fourth year and begin to process my situation in life, my place within the community I have been blessed to be a part of, and where I will go afterwards.
Before Europe, I thought I understood how valuable the SSU community was in my life. I now realize how little I knew then (and probably how little I know now), but these people around me have taught me how to love and forgive beyond what I thought I was capable of. Perhaps it’s the forced hours on the bus, falling asleep to distant (or very close) snoring, or coping on the days when you just want to be alone. In every way this community has taught me to forgive, to step out of my comforts and become a person I never thought I could be. Though I am still learning, I know that this experience will stay with me forever, it is changing the way I see the world and my place in it.
‘In community life we discover our own deepest wound and learn to accept it. So our rebirth can begin. It is from this very wound that we are born.’ -Jean Vanier, Community and Growth.

Artists and Exploitation – Mel Weatherhead

July 9, 2008 – 7:05 am
By mel weatherhead | Posted in Europe 2008 Comments (0)

As this trip comes to a close i realize it’s time for me to put a post up here. It is nice to feel a little bit connected with your community back home when you’re on the road for 2 months.

A reflection that has been recurring in my mind is that of the exploitation of the artist. With an artist as a sister (and a really good one: jessweatherhead.com…ahem), I recognize that many artists paint certain ‘masterpieces’ as private and very personal pieces. I know Jess has a few select paintings or even sketches that probably I haven’t even seen. I’ve noticed this in a few different museums that we’ve been to. One that stands out to me is at the Prado in Spain where we saw Goya’s Black Paintings. What little I know of them is that they were painted on the walls of his house, making me assume that they weren’t intended to be taken down or sold or displayed elsewhere. It’s really hard to judge now what Goya had intended with these paintings, but I like to believe that they were for his own private collection and I felt weird walking through the display and seeing these personal, haunting pieces. I am selfishly glad that they are exposed to the public because they are absolutely incredible, but if he intended them for himself and no-one else what would he feel today if he walked into the Prado and saw them there with thousands of tourists streaming through daily? Raped, exploited, exposed to the world? It’s like framing someones journal and broadcasting it to the world. Just a thought that I’m developing. I’m seeing it more and more with the extensive museum visits and have just been questioning artist intent and how we deal with that nowadays.

Hope all is well on the home-front.