The Solstice, Sunflowers, Van Gogh, & Me
It was a summer of record-breaking heat. There was nothing else I could do but to lay perfectly still on my bed—the covers beneath me too warm—next to the open window, ceiling fan circling as fast as it would go, the air stifling inside my ten square foot room, door shut. As I laid there, thoughts ruminating barely quicker than the ceiling fan above me, I scrolled on my phone in a never-ending attempt to quell the chatter in my mind. A video popped up as the sun was setting, casting its golden glow on the white walls: a young woman orating a unique history of the color yellow. “How is it possible for yellow to be one of the most beautiful colors,” she begins, “and at the same time, one of the saddest?”
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Vincent Van Gogh was a restless soul. Unsure of what he wanted out of life, he tried on many jobs and roles that never quite seemed to fit, and bounced from locale to locale throughout his early life. Loves didn’t last, nor did he have much support from his parents, who looked down on his unsettled nature. He didn’t land on art until he was 27 years old; his brother Theo, the one person in his life who loved him most, sent him money while he worked out his life’s purpose, and encouraged him to seriously consider becoming an artist.
After some time in art school, then in Paris with Theo, Van Gogh’s style (once dark and focused on the working class) became inspired by the city, its beautiful landscapes, and the impressionists who resided there. At any rate, French tastes leaned more towards color, cityscapes, and still lifes, and Vincent was certainly hoping to make some money. However, after just a few years in Paris, he fled the frenetic nature of the city to the South of France with dreams of establishing an artists’ colony. In Arles, among the fresh air and bright colors of the countryside, Van Gogh took up residence in the Yellow House.
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As a child, the way I survived was through art. Consuming it, sure. But crafting my own, too. It started as it does for many young children: playing pretend with imaginary friends. I never created any original imaginary friends, as far as I can remember, but I would imagine the characters from my favorite movies, shows, and books were playing with me, or imagine myself in their world rather than my own. This habit carried on (embarrassingly) into my late teens, a maladaptive form of disassociation and escape from my boring, disappointing suburban life.
I wrote my own stories, too. I would listen to songs in the dark of my small bedroom before falling asleep, letting imagery and plot take over from the music and lyrics, typing them up on my school laptop the next day. I wrote constantly back then, all the way up until college essays took over my writing life. Attempts at novels, poetry, short stories, parodies and farces. It was easily my first creative love.
Drawing, another childhood classic, was another pastime of mine. My favorite types of projects in school were always the ones that had us play with art. At home, I was usually doodling line drawings: creatures, characters, comics. In high school, I wanted to learn to paint, so I bought myself a cheap set of acrylics and some brushes and waited for my father to clean off a work surface in his garage for me, so that I didn’t accidentally paint anything in the house—my mother’s main concern. (Let it be known that I didn’t spill so much as a drop of paint on any of my work surfaces.) I taught myself by watching a few videos online, but mainly by following my own motor skills.
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While in Arles, Van Gogh rented several rooms in his beloved Yellow House with hopes of establishing an artists’ colony. His brother not only supported this idea (well aware of how isolated Vincent often was), but essentially paid Paul Gaugin to travel and work there. Gaugin, otherwise, was not interested in going.
In anticipation of his friend’s arrival, Van Gogh continued to paint one of his best-known series of works, the Sunflowers. To Vincent, sunflowers represented gratitude, joy, and connection. He hung two of the paintings in Gaugin’s room; Gaugin, luckily, did enjoy them, having expressed as much about earlier versions Van Gogh had done in Paris. Sunflowers were perhaps not the most refined floral to paint according to French sensibilities, but that seemed to suit Vincent fine. He soon made himself synonymous with the sunflower and its yellow hues.
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A few years ago, when I was renting that little room, I felt thoroughly adrift. My career prospects, my relationship, and seemingly the entire world—this being a post-lockdown year—had all crumbled away, and I was left looking at a person I barely recognized. When a fancy, impressive career in publishing no longer felt like the right fit, if financial success wasn’t part of my story, who was I? What did I even want out of life?
Every Monday, after my therapy appointments, I made a habit of running weekly errands: groceries and a visit to Target. I literally couldn’t afford to do much more than that. But sometimes, as a treat, I took myself to Michael’s. I can’t quite remember or explain why I started going in the first place. Most weeks, I would just make loops down all the aisles, looking, touching, but not buying anything. I had spent years now lugging my cheap, aged art supplies with me, neglected like a folktale stepchild. I knew I didn’t need more things; I didn’t want to buy more things and disappoint myself when I never actually created anything with those things. Still, there was something about being there, surrounded by the potential for creativity, that gave me just a little bit of fulfillment when all else was failing.
It was the very first chirp of a voice telling me that this is what I actually wanted. Call it my inner child, long forgotten and locked away somewhere so I could get on with adult life; call it intuition. Whatever it was, I was hesitant to listen. My skills had long atrophied. I wasn’t writing, wasn’t drawing, not with any regularity or intention, anyway. The whole thing seemed pointless and daunting.
One Monday, though, I came across an endcap display full of paint-by-number kits, and, lo and behold, there was a kit for Sunflowers. Here was a moment of synchronicity: a glimmer of hope, a way for me to touch my creativity without the pressure of masterful skill. I took it home and started on it in my little rented room. There was no space for an easel or table or anything, and while I could have probably worked on it in the common spaces of the house, there was something sacred about the enterprise that I knew I wanted to keep to myself. This felt deeply personal. So I sat on the bed with old towels under me and all around me, and laid the canvas sheet across a small folding lap desk (where I also often drank my morning coffee and ate my meals). Slowly, I started filling in the tiny, numbered brushstrokes with its corresponding paint, feeling a glimmer of something like happiness growing in my core.
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Van Gogh and Gaugin were very different artists. While the two collaborated on artwork in the Yellow House, they had different approaches and techniques, which they’d argue about for long bouts. After two months, Gaugin threatened to return to Paris, sending Vincent into a spiral. This is the moment which spawned the infamous story about his ear; it’s somewhat contested whether he meant to do it, whether it was intentional self-harm or a nervous breakdown, whether or not he handed the severed ear to a prostitute. Whatever the truth of it, it’s clear that Van Gogh was deeply distraught by the idea of his friend leaving, his being alone again, perhaps being so misunderstood by those around him. After his episode, he checked himself into a mental hospital.
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As was my way, I inevitably set aside the paint-by-numbers kit for other things. My life was moving in so many different directions: I picked up a freelance job to supplement my full-time job; I was spending most weekends away (having rekindled said failed relationship, now long distance); and I was plotting a move out of my rented bedroom. My priorities once again shifted to other spaces, and art, my creativity, was relegated to the backseat.
After moving, spending time settling into the new space, and letting the chaos of the holiday season and early spring wash out of my nervous system, I felt the old call to make something. Maybe to finish the project I had started nearly a year before. It was finally summer, and now I had my own space, a desk and an easel, with a large window to paint by while the sun took its time setting. And so that’s what I did.
It didn’t take long for the familiar critical voices to surface. Some of the paints had dried, a physical marker of my neglect. I had to remix some of my own long-aged, cheap paints to try to match the colors I couldn’t salvage with a bit of water and patient hours. Even as I tried to reassure myself that this was simply an exercise in stretching the old creative muscles, not birthing a masterpiece or showing that I could paint with any impressive skill, I too easily imagined other artists, real people I knew, scoffing at me in my mind’s eye. How adorable, they said (behind my back in this daydream), derisive. She wants to call herself an artist but she’s doing a paint-by-numbers kit… poorly. Of course, I wanted to create my own original work. I aspired to much more than the acrylic equivalent of a coloring book. But my inner child, my inner artist, had been deeply wounded somewhere along the way, and too long deserted. I knew this was all I had in me to do. So I pressed on, even as the voice of the “real” artist haunted my every brushstroke.
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While in hospital, Van Gogh painted religiously, and this fervor continued once he reentered the world outside. His doctor advised him to throw himself into his art—he did. This was also a period in which Vincent’s paintings began to gain a bit of traction: his pieces at several showings received positive reviews.
This was not enough to save him, though. His brother—and main benefactor—was planning on leaving the art dealing business to start his own enterprise, and the threat of another nervous breakdown loomed. Things were changing; he was no longer so sure of the future. And he was tired, plagued by doubt and loneliness for most of his life. One day in July of 1890, he walked from his apartment into a wheatfield in Auvers-sur-Oise, the countryside, the landscape which had brought him the most happiness, and attempted to take his own life with a pistol. He made it back to his apartment somehow, where his brother Theo had rushed in from Paris in time to be with him before he died of his injuries.
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“And so the story of the Sunflowers is not one of the crazy genius or the misunderstood artist,” the young woman says at the end of her video. “It’s a reminder to not judge others and to show kindness as much as possible. That’s what Vincent would have wanted. And that’s what yellow means to me.” She laughs shyly.
I had never been much invested in Vincent Van Gogh, his story, or his works. I knew of him, of course, knew some of his most famous paintings, knew he cut off his ear and had seen the resulting self portrait. I attempted to complete a puzzle of Starry Night during lockdown, thinking the challenge would be fun (it was not; it was frustrating beyond belief and I never finished it). But hearing the story behind this particular painting, hearing more about his life and his mental illness, moved me. For the first time, I felt some small comradery with Van Gogh.
I, too, am restless. Often lonely, misunderstood by most. I, too, dive into art to escape the things I find less desirable about my surroundings, my life, myself. The biggest difference between us (besides the obvious time, place, gender, etc.) is that he regularly painted, lived and breathed it, while I only watched from the sidelines of my modern life and wished I could paint well, or write well, or take photos well. The truth, somewhere deep in my psyche, was that I was afraid. My rejection sensitivity had become too burdensome. I no longer wanted to be perceived so that I could avoid the pain of judgement. Ergo, I didn’t make art, even while a tiny pocket of my heart wanted to make art more than anything.
I laid in bed and felt deeply for this man who had lived and died so long ago, for our kindred qualities, just for a few minutes. Until I scrolled past to the next video on my phone and forgot all about these hidden truths while my brain became happily distracted.
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The summer that I painted my poor man’s rendition of the Sunflowers felt especially meaningful. After all, I was literally painting sunflowers, an emblem of the season. And it was right around the time of the summer solstice, when the days became their longest. It’s also an interesting note that I was working on this project around the same month as the artist’s death, without knowing that at the time.
I did finish the painting. I attached its wooden brackets to the canvas sheet and hung it on my living room wall. But I didn’t share it or talk about it. Nor did I continue painting, as I thought (hoped) would happen afterwards. I even thought about writing this essay; instead, I bottled my complicated feelings about the experience for another year, admittedly scared to put anything out into the world. I did not feel good enough. I was a child playacting at being an artist.
I still feel that way—more often than not, if I’m being honest. I’m still battling my fear of being perceived, of judgement. This summer, however, I decided to lean into the spirit of the summer solstice, and it felt… nice. As a winter child, summer is my exact opposite. I hate the heat, for one, and then there’s all that isolating and fear I’ve already talked about. Confidence is not exactly my forte. But I have also been tired of letting my darkest parts get the best of me, of letting my fears rule my life and keep me from attempting the things that, I think, bring me the most joy.
I suppose this is an ode to the solstice, as summer draws to a close and we begin to enter the shadowy seasons. To feeling misunderstood and pressing on anyways. To joy, to art. To building strength. And to Van Gogh and his Sunflowers.