It’s my birthday weekend and I’m celebrating by wandering through an art museum because the art in here is older than I am.
I’m strolling past landscapes, women in pearls, boys in blue, and saints with halos … when I see her: A girl in a rumpled pink dress, leaning on a golden staff, wearing a hat that looks like either an origami project gone wrong or a beak from one of my chicken paintings.. It’s entitled The Birthday Party, painted by William Merritt Chase. (1849–1916)
I’m rumpled too! I stand in front of the painting long enough for the new museum guard to notice me. Maybe he’s been forewarned by the previous guard who allegedly fled because my strange disappearances into paintings mystified him to the point of consumption. I’ve sent flowers.
The girl in the painting has a smile that gives me the impression she knows a secret l don’t. “Happy birthday,” I whisper.
Next blink, I’m no longer in front of the painting, I’m in it. Evidently the magic words for painting entry were “Happy birthday.” I write this down in a notebook and doodle a chicken.
The dark background in the painting has turned into a backstage of paper lanterns, half‑finished paintings, and more hats folded from tossed sketches, junk mail, and grocery lists. Her hand is resting on that golden staff and up close, I see it’s strung with tiny charms, shiny ones and dull ones.
The shiny ones are books, fountain pens, chickens, teacups, ideas I almost didn’t follow… but did. She taps the staff. The charms tinkle together, chiming like laughter. “Every time you decide to create despite doubt and pressured expectations, a new charm appears.”
Cool.
“But look closer at some of the heavy, dull charms,” she says. Inscribed are words like, You Have to, Later, and You’re old. They’ve emerged from worry, society, and the negativity bias,” she says. (Wise for her age, I’d say).
I touch one that’s engraved with I’m resistant and it dissolves into confetti and drifts away in a little storm of Fun Instead.
I turn my attention to the shiny charms filled with story, self-acknowledgment, and the recognition that chocolate exists.
We celebrate with a lopsided cake and wonky candles, making wishes for more play and fewer things that don’t matter. When we blow the candles out together, the flames turn into tiny lights that cascade toward the staff and soften the old inscriptions. “You have to..” becomes “You get to…”, “Too Old” becomes “Well‑spiced and dangerous,” “Later” becomes “Thirty seconds of doodling right now.”
She presses an invisible birthday gift into my hand, it’s a feeling not an object, and it rearranges itself into one message: “Things are exactly as they are supposed to be, believe it and see what happens.”
I slip back through the painting and I’m in front of the canvas again, feeling mildly dangerous and deeply grateful for art and imagination. I see her hat, still an origami accident, but now I realize that’s the point: my art, my aging, my life are all beautifully imperfect paper creations, and the only rule is that I keep folding and see what happens.
“The Birthday Party” (c. 1902) is an American Impressionist oil painting by William Merritt Chase. It features loose brushwork, vibrant color palettes, and intimate domestic realism and is an painting that captures a private family milestone.
William Merritt Chase (1849–1916) was a highly influential American Impressionist painter, a prominent tastemaker of the Gilded Age, and one of the most celebrated art educators in American history. (A tastemaker is a person who influences, shapes, and decides what is considered fashionable or stylish in a culture).
Thoughts
Imagine you step into a painting . Who meets you inside, and what liberating truth do they tell you about your age or creativity?
Invent a “hat” in your life that looks like an origami project gone wrong—let it be a metaphor for some imperfect, awkward choice you’ve made—and explore how it might actually be your crown.
Make a list of all the “charms” on your own invisible staff: every “Should,” “Later,” “Be serious,” or “I’ll do it when I’m better” you occasionally believe. Then rewrite each one into a new birthday spell that gives you permission to begin again, imperfectly.
Sneaking in the Back Door of Poetry and Prose- 3 classes starting Aug 11
Online writing class through San Diego Writer’s Ink
2730 Historic Decatur Road Suite 204
San Diego, CA 92106
Wacky Still Life, Figures in the Rain and Color Workshop
Next Zoom Workshop is August 13 at 11am pacific/ 2pm eastern
Free for Paid Subscribers, $27 for civilians
We will put together unconventional still lifes and find fun colors to make them irresistibly amazing.
Link will be shared soon in subscriber chat and email
Reception for my What the Flock?! Art Show
It’s an immersive experience!
August 17th 6-8 pm San Diego Writer’s Ink
Shannon Bates on the sax, chickens etc on the walls.
Light refreshments
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