What Reminds You Who You Are? The Restorative Power of Art

I knew I would enjoy it but I didn’t expect to be quite so moved by it.
The exhibition brings together, for the first time, 20 enormous tapestries based on Boyd’s Life of St Francis works. Created in collaboration with weavers in a small Portuguese town in the 1970s, they are extraordinarily rich, strange, beautiful and, at times, confronting.

There was one particular story that struck me: Francis was angered by Brother Ruffino’s refusal to preach, so to punish him, he ordered him to preach naked. But when Francis saw him doing so, humiliated and afraid, he recognised his own cruelty. So Francis removed his own clothes and stood beside him, preaching vigorously.

There was something about that act that really moved me. Francis was not only admitting “I got this wrong”, but was also prepared to recognise and share in the discomfort he had, in anger, imposed on someone else.

Humility, accountability, compassion and leadership, in a story nearly 800 years old.

The whole exhibition left me thinking about things bigger than work and the endless busyness of everyday life. I’ve been thinking about love, care, humility, beauty and our connection to something beyond ourselves. This is why I found the afternoon so restorative.

One of my highest VIA character strengths is Appreciation of Beauty & Excellence. Spending time with art, music, beautiful places and extraordinary human creativity isn’t just something I enjoy. I’ve realised over the years that it genuinely restores me. It is a need for me: to be reminded of beauty, of stories, of creativity, of the same searching and questions humans have been contemplating for ages.

A couple of hours in a gallery today made me feel calmer, more connected, full of ideas and reminded me who I am and why I am here.

It was a very lovely way to end the working week.

And if you’re in Canberra, the Boyd tapestries at the National
Gallery of Australia are really something special.