Boston Globe columnist and LexArt student Elissa Ely reflects on how she learns to see the world with new eyes while studying Chinese brush painting with one of LexArt’s most beloved instructors, Qingxiong Ma.
"I, for one, want to lead life the way he does — reflectively, with a continual gaze, resiliently. If we paint and paint and paint, and look and look and look, maybe it is possible."
By Elissa Ely
The teacher and the open window
I’m often early to the Chinese brush painting class (as if this could remedy a beginner’s incompetence) and, from the car, I see the teacher wheeling his supplies toward the school entrance. In spring and summer, sunny or wet, he stops at the door and gazes at a barrel to its right, filled with lotus flowers he donated. A plant will grow even when no one looks. But he is always looking.
Read the full column here.
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