Making Movies Out Of Ordinary Days

  I like to call myself a dreamer. Truth is, I've always been a deeply imaginative person. That's why - and maybe even how - I try to find beauty in my ordinary life at every chance I get. After all, beauty is art, and art offers a great scope for the imagination.

  Fortunately, there are people just like me. Writers. Dreamers. And they found ways to give all that imagination a space to grow. They wrote it down and called it literature, then they pretended to live it out for the screens and called it cinema.

 There's some sort of magic in dreaming - and it's not so different from making up fake scenarios inside my head. Right? I mean, quoting the great Albus Dumbledore, of course it's happening inside my head, but why on earth should it mean it's not real?

  I've found great comfort in made up stories and getting endless possibilities to live through characters. As one of my favorites would say, isn't it splendid to think of all the things there are to find about?

  Don't get me wrong, I've had my share of experiences and a life well lived up until now, and I know I still got plenty of time ahead of me - but I just can't help but keep on wondering about what I might be missing out on - tugging on the urging need to do everything all of the time. That's why I've decided to start looking out for new experiences, to try and beat those fairytales with something better, something real. 

  On this day, I begin my personal journey to discover new places and unique foreign experiences, and we begin our journey through art and history at the source: the Yale Art Gallery, in New Haven, CT. Actually, scratch that. We're stopping by the entry.

  Just around the corner of the street, we run into green cloths on big tables with flying papers held down by bricks. It's an improvised scenery for what looks like a workshop, and the sun hits the bright green with an almost blinding intensity. It's a hot summer day, and we're interested.

It's all about green screens. The plan is to set a scene, make up your own world through paper collages, and then insert yourself in it. We spend a few hours under the burning sun, not even minding the wind messing up our work, while we look at and cut up and glue together different pieces of art and places and people. I stick flowers to a wild sea and an entire tale of gods and tragedies starts building itself up in my imagination.

Later, I'd get inside the world I created through the magic of neon green, and it would not only happen inside my head, although it also wouldn't be happening in real life either. That's what I love most about this whole thing - I brought a stormy beach to a sunny city, even if just for a moment. Once you do it, you understand why it's called art.

  That brings us back to our journey for the day: we're going to the Art Gallery. In which, if I'm being honest, there's nothing new. We go through different types of art - undoubtedly astonishing - through different ages and times in history - undoubtedly unbelievable - but nothing strikes my attention as much as a tiny piece hanging up on a crowded corner. There are sculptures and massive paintings around it, though they do not intrigue me nearly as much.

  I don't even know how to describe it. I believe it's a painting. I forgot to read its description.

  I am my brother's keeper. That's what it says. According to my quick and not-at-all-intricate research regarding latin, it's a quote from the Bible. Assuming the text has anything to do with the visuals, the painting is about the story of Cain and Abel, and the famous brotherly sacrifice from the Book of Genesis. It's a good story. But for another time.

  I'm not here to discuss religious verses, or even the story behind this piece. What pulled me in was the way it was represented - it's broken into parts, almost like a collage. There's a certain melancholy in the contrast between the colors, and in the way the drawing style is barely realistic. You can get what it means just by the essential elements, and still, the uniqueness sparks through a rather simple frame.

  It quickly became my favorite piece of the museum, and yet I wouldn't be able to explain exactly why. All I know is I could have dreamed about something like this, and even knowing about the story, it's easy to picture my own version of it - based solely on what I feel towards what I see. It's on moments like these that you understand why they write and paint and film and keep trying to put into words whatever goes on inside - their hearts, not minds.

  I made up a movie in my mind with Adam and Eve and flowers in the rain. I taped different stories together and ended up with something beautiful. I realized you don't need much more than a collage workshop in the middle of a street on a Thursday afternoon to get inspired enough to find a profound meaning inside a painting.

  Art is what our dreams are made of. It hides in the corners museums, and comes to life in bright neon colors. The best stories are made out of those tiny moments you might let pass by unnoticed. So here's to looking out for sparks in every detail and making movies out of ordinary days. 

(my collage)