“team brave”, 21×18 cm, pencil&white chalk (sketch for oil painting)

“team wise”, 21×18 cm, pencil&white chalk (sketch for oil painting)

“Human beings are story tellers by nature.”  Jerome Bruner

“The unread story is not a story; it is little black marks on wood pulp. The reader, reading it, makes it live: a live thing, a story.”  Ursula K. Le Guin

The story appears in every human culture in a multitude of colors: myths, legends, folktale, zen, joke, personal anecdote, novel, biography, tv, motion picture… Stories keep us motivated, uplift us, inspire, teach us. They are great source of collective knowledge and wisdom. Not all stories are good. But I guess the truly good ones easily transcend the notion of time and literally, pass over from one generation to another.

In the realm of good stories, this evening I’ll be attending a biography book presentation by Stipe Božić about Mate Šimunović. Mate was the first Croatian world traveler who, together with his dog Globus, traveled around the world from 1928 to 1947. They traveled by bike, horse, on foot and small sailing boat and thus crossed over 360.000 km and visited 70 countries in 5 continents.

I wish (read ‘working on it’) my paintings in the future can tell a good story. I’m not talking about illustrations, rather something else – a story that could be told using only colors, tones and lines.

I’ll be now finishing this story telling post with the words of beloved writer Ursula K. Le Guin: “The creative adult is the child who has survived.”