a few thoughts of late

today: January 11, 2007

Today, while running, I thought of how while I was rowing I believed it to be the ultimate physical and mental challenge. Now I know that it was just a warm up for the next two years on this volcanic rock.

January 7, 2007

Today marks six months in Cape Verde and I find myself thinking of Van Gogh’s The Potato Eaters. I remember sitting in my History of Art class learning about this simple looking painting??. It certainly is not what Van Gogh is known for, but the significance of this painting is the way in which he portrayed the characters to resemble their labors.

It is certainly true that the hard work and toil in the fields leaves a visible mark on those that are doing the hard work and toil, a look much different from the man or woman leaving the office at 5:00 after a long hard days work at the desk. It is visible in the taught muscles, the sun-tired eyes, the slight, semi-permanent tilt of the back, the slow, tired stride on the way home and the rapid, almost overnight, aging that happens somewhere between 15 and 25. There is an almost magical innocence in the very young here that is hardened and robbed before they are half way through grade school.

But then, I can’t forget the significance of the hands. Van Gogh portrayed the hands of the potato eaters in a gnarled, knotted way that resembled an arthritic potato. Looking at them, you can almost see them digging into the Earth in search of the next day’s meal. They are powerful hands, hands of significance. Not hands used for typing. Not hands used for writing 50 minute responses to questions about Art or Literature. Hands used for survival. Every hand I shake here is raw, calloused and hardened by years of survival. Even the tiniest women have hands of raw power. I look at my hands and see the years of luxury in the rings of my trunk.

I think what haunts me about the painting is the way that it was spoken of in class. This race of potato eaters was assumed dead and preserved in the timeless pencil strokes of Van Gogh. They were spoken of as if they were a thing of the past, another page in the history book. Contextually, sitting in a classroom looking at this image projected on the wall in the midst of a city of abandoned mills, developing real estate and limited designated areas of actual land, it seemed just fine that these potato eaters were presumed dead. After all, where else could they exist outside of that image on the wall? Even the farm land that I was familiar with filled acres and acres of land and was maintained by delicate hands and machinery. There were no gnarled and knotted hands digging the earth for their survival and sustenance, huddled around a candle at night to consume the meager fruits of their labor. No, none of that. How removed we have become…

Here, I would not say that I live amidst the potato eaters. No, I live amidst the corn eaters. There are no exaggerated pencil strokes to turn my neighbors into corn stalks blowing in the wind, but in many ways it seems that they too are born of the earth from which they take their daily bread. We have even gone so far as to dub our students and the children of the community “corncobs” for their innocent and gentle country way of life. Not to mention the way they seem to appear out of nowhere, emerging from the endless fields of corn.

When I think back to that classroom, I like to think that I admired and respected Van Gogh’s creativity in the portrayal of his potato eaters. I think I nodded approvingly at the description and perhaps even smiled an ironic smile. Now, I think myself a fool, for now I find myself amongst those cleverly portrayed characters (I hesitate to call them individuals because they could be so many). They are not just images anymore, but real people with real names. The portrayal is no longer ironic, but has become powerful and moving. I pity the students that have sat in that same chair and will sit in that same chair with that same ironic smile, presuming that the potato eaters are gone and captured only within the pages of that dense textbook.

Courtesy of Wikipedia:
Van Gogh said he wanted to depict peasants as they really were.
"I wanted to convey the idea that the people eating potatoes by the light of an oil lamp used the same hands with which they take food from the plate to work the land, that they have toiled with their hands—that they have earned their food by honest means".