Knitting Van Gogh

Last night, Brother, Girlthing Cindy and I went to "Becoming Van Gogh" at the Denver Art Museum.

Van Gogh's early career was steeped, both geographically and philosophically, in the Dutch manner. He worked in somber, earthy colours and his subject matter tended to be the common man, his pursuits and detritus.

Stick with me, the story gets better.

It was when he joined his brother, Theo, in Paris, that he began to immerse himself in the colour and - for lack of a better word - whimsy of the French style of the time.

A part of the exhibit talks about how colour pairs and defines and blends and contrasts, and how Van Gogh explained this to his brother. There was a box of yarn under glass by the colour wheels. The placard above it explained that, somehow, in his pursuit of colour theory education, he found that he could twist different colours of yarn together to see how they would play.

I nudged Brother, pointed to the display, and said, "Yarn!"

"Huh. Van Gogh had a stash too," he said.

Van Gogh and I both indulged in yarn stash.

And we both had little brothers who were, ultimately, teachable.