love is to be shared

Robert Montgomery confessed this to Dazed: 

Well it’s been really nice over the last year to be in nice shows, like the Orientale show in Venice during the Biennale etc but the responses that really have impact on me are the emails I get from strangers who write to say they saw a piece or read a piece and some really touched them or struck a chord, or just write to say “keep going” – an email from a student in Amsterdam, a school teacher in Melbourne Australia, and a chef in New York are all recent ones that touched me. Or when you see a blog piece about the work with people’s comments, like this one for example which someone sent me today. The encouragement of strangers, that’s what’s the most touching.

interestingly, on the same note,  a couple days earlier i saved this quote by Lyle Lovett for Esquire’s What I’ve Learned series:

Rosemary Clooney once came up to me in the lobby of the Four Seasons in San Francisco. This was back in the late eighties. She said, “I like your music.” Oh, man, that makes you feel good. It makes you want to try so much harder. It makes you want to never let Rosemary Clooney down. Ever. Makes you want to make sure that she’s right.

brought me back to my own rant of some months back.

i bumped into bronques of lastnightparty (and .tv) in london in the same period he shot this.  he just finished exchanging contacts w a curvy girl, and was standing by himself, looking left and right down a cool-crowd-packed brick lane. i recognized him by the signature hat and goggles.

but i hesitated. i love what he does, and has been keeping an eye on his work for 3 or more years now, but he surely meets tons of people who say just that, i thought.  so i didnt go and say hi. i just observed him for some minutes, and left.

later that night pedro told me how foolish of me.  if you like or appreciate smth, go out and tell the artist.  they dont know.  they need cheering.  they need this love.  it’s simple and rewarding.  nothing special, just honest words of what you like. then leave. dont be a burden, and dont exaggerate.

love is to be shared.

indeed.