Art is for connection

We live in such tumultuous times. There is so much hatred and division everywhere you look. It feels like it’s hard to connect with people and loneliness is continuously on the rise. These past few days have felt so heavy. It’s hard to know where to begin to help people or how to make a difference.

So how do you connect with people at a time of such severe division?

The only answer I can come up with is art. At least for me. Art is a form of communication that allows me to express myself while simultaneously connecting with others.

Recently I made a work of art for a friend that I haven’t seen or really spoken to in years. She is an amazing woman. She is a professional baker, a mom, a wife, and honestly one of the kindest souls you will ever meet. I don’t actually know too much about her but she did invite me to her wedding and I have followed along with some of her highs and lows over the years via social media.

She is a true inspiration because she put the work in every single day for years and now she runs her own successful company and is well known not only in South West Florida but across the US. That is not easy for a woman to do and to do so humbly and with such grace takes it to a whole different level. Her name is Lexie Verbruggen and she runs Sweetified Cakes by Lexie in Naples, FL. Like her pages and order a cake!

So I made her a unique work of art to show her that while she is in the trenches of motherhood and running her own company she is seen. She is a powerful smart woman with amazing talent and she might not know it but she is an inspiration. We need more Lexies in the world. We need more people who lead with love and kindness and passion. We need to ensure that these people know they are seen so that they can continue to shine their light out into the world and lead the path for those of us who are stumbling by in the dark. She took her God given talents and harnessed them into something amazing. It wasn’t luck it was a lot of hard work.

It felt really special to connect with her again and to share with her some of the art that I make. I don’t know a lot about Lexie but I do know the next time we connect or see each other we will have something to talk about.. and who knows where that conversation will lead or what topics we will discuss.. but I think that’s the point. It’s the first simple step in connecting with someone.

So at a time of such great disconnection let’s find the simple ways to connect again. Ask yourself what is something simple you can do or make or cook or bake for a friend or a colleague or neighbor that will invite the connection. I think if we start there we will begin to see so many more ways in which we are all the same and less ways in which we are different.