I was recently chatting with a friend about art. She said she’d heard about someone asking random people “if you could own any piece of art, what would it be and why?” I thought that was a great question and immediately one picture came to mind. It’s Picasso’s Head of a Woman, a small painting from 1924 that’s in the Tate Modern collection in London. I saw it in person while I was in town for a work visit. For several days, I was writing at the museum, and I’d go visit this painting each day. It drew me in and I wasn’t sure why.

My friend, who I recently came out to, asked if it resonated with me personally? I said I hadn’t thought about it at the time (this trip was over 10 years ago). But, I told her, thinking about it now, maybe I was drawn to it because I saw myself in it. Feminine, contemplative, somewhat abstract, a tad withdrawn? Saying this out loud to her was really powerful. It further illustrates how much of my true self was bubbling up under the surface. Even though I’d known for longer, I never connected this attraction to a painting with my inner self.

This is yet another reason why I love art, be it music, painting, writing, etc. It gets inside you. There are immediate reactions, but sometimes the delayed ones are even more profound.