The Eyes of a Visionary

What a gift it is to reflect on the antiquities of an ancient world. Pieces of history, art, and culture scattered across the country, or better yet, the world.

Great works of architects, creators, and sculptors. The buildings of ancient Rome, Medieval castles that now linger quietly in the shadows of old Italy, or the sculptures carved in remembrance of bygone heroes.

Poetry and storytelling are indeed an art, and an art worthy of high appreciation. It invokes the imaginative and allows the mind to bleed onto paper for others to witness it. A person's consciousness, if you will, breathed down the spine of a book that then carries it along towards another's.

Then there are the visionary artists. The ones who tell stories in the world of three-dimensions. They bring characters to life, whether it be from talent and skill, or a sheer force of willpower. Painters, potters, carvers, sculptors.

''I saw the angel in the marble, and I chiseled until I set it free.''

-Michelangelo

The Pieta, carved by Michelangelo at twenty-five years of age, is a grand example. His sculpted image of Mary cradling her son beyond his death, a mother who held her son in the beginning and in the end, tells a story of great weight, carved into intricate stone.

No one sees what the artist sees. The canvas is unique to their own eye, the untouched stone stares back at them, awaiting the precision of practiced hands to create something new within it. A blank reflection, awaiting refined perfection. The potter, who designs clay with his own fingertips, creates a piece all his own. He creates from the building blocks of the earth itself, as he builds with water and clay.

It is the visionaries who move the mountains and create the arts and treasured pieces that we stare at in wonder. The architects who built things that remind us of our own insignificant size. The painters who capture a landscape so others may see it, or the ones who give us a glimpse into the personal pictures of their own mind. The sculptors, who can see people hidden in stone, and carry the persistence and determination to bring them to life.

These creatives, who feel that art is their responsibility, their due diligence and a gift to humanity, even beyond their own time. The legacy left from living with imagination and wonder.

The epics who wrote great stories, and poetry create with their mind and with their words. They are their own kind of visionary. But we also must credit, admire, and appreciate those who tell stories and create worlds, characters, and speak strong truths with no words at all. Just an image in a world from their own mind and painted into ours, and yet, seen only through the eyes of a visionary.

The world needs more beauty, grand art, and vision. That vision is yours to create. Others will see it too, if you have courage to create it first. You have to see it in order to create it.

Be a visionary.