A Recommended Read

AFTER The Obligation of Beauty

by Mindy Weisel

 “My belief in beauty is an obligation, a duty, a responsibility, a great joy in fulfilling:  Beauty: in living it, in creating it, in sharing it.  This has been my purpose.”  p.8   

Born at Bergen-Belsen concentration camp shortly after WWII,  Mindy Weisel knew too much too soon.  Unprotected from the horrors of her parents’ ordeal, yet guided by their example, she devoted herself – in painting and writing and loving – to healing herself, her family, and at least a bit of the world through beauty.  Moving words and colors across blank pages, she inspires readers to burst beyond pain and suffering by means of seeing and feeling the good.

Her third book, AFTER, tracks her growth as an artist and includes stunning photographs of her paintings.  Snapshots and stories tell a complex family history; and journal entries take readers deep into her personal struggle. 

One particularly intriguing – and lingering – tale here is the mysterious juxtaposition of her 1979 painting, Lamentations, with a photograph taken in 1996 by an American photojournalist at Majdanek.  Two virtually identical images with no knowable link … but for the power of the truth somehow having found its way into the light via two separate paths.

It is an unironically beautiful book, sure to inspire your creative journey…  as well your taking more time to write in your journal in order that – after – you may trace your own particular pathway.