How Art Connects People: The Little Girl Who Shared Her Light With Me
- 4 days ago
- 6 min read
I recently returned from a week at the beach visiting my aunt in Delaware, and my heart is still somewhere among the dunes. Each morning, after persuading myself to leave the comfort of bed, I carried my easel toward the ocean and settled beneath an umbrella. I listened to the seagulls laugh, watched them dance along the shoreline, and studied the changing moods of the water. No two mornings were the same. The ocean shifted between glistening teal, sap green, phthalo blue, and Payne’s gray beneath expansive manganese-blue skies. It felt as though nature were mixing a new palette for me each day.
I went there to paint, but what I received was much greater.
A Small Encounter With an Enormous Impact
One day, a little girl passed my easel with a spark in her eye, and each time, she cheered me on. She studied the paintings with the kind of openness children possess before the world teaches them to hide their enthusiasm. She told me that if she owned one of my paintings, she would hang it in her bedroom and love it every day. Then she added that if she ever moved, she would take it with her wherever she went.
My heart completely melted.
Later, I spoke with her parents, who are Ukrainian immigrants living in Pennsylvania. Her father is also a gifted landscape artist. I asked the little girl which of the three ocean paintings was her favorite. The moment she pointed to it, I signed it and placed it in her hands. The joy on her face, and in the faces of her parents, is something I will carry for a very long time.
I may have given her a painting, but she gave me something more. She reminded me why I paint.
How Art Connects People Across Our Differences
Art connects people. It crosses languages, cultures, ages, histories, and experiences. It allows us to recognize something in one another before we know all the details of each other’s stories.
That morning on the beach, none of our differences mattered. There was an artist, a child, an ocean, and a shared moment of joy.
The encounter reminded me that although I am one small person in an enormous universe, I still have an important role within it. My role is to share my soul, my vision, my joy, and my light with others. I cannot separate that calling from who I am. It is as much a part of me as my blue eyes, blonde hair, and fair skin.
Art is how I make sense of the world. It is also how I reach toward it.
From Finding the Light to Becoming the Light
Over the past several weeks, I have been sharing the story of my Illuminate the World collection. Together, we have moved through four stages: discover your light, nurture your light, carry your light, and become your light.
The final four paintings are not simply the works that happen to remain. They are the culmination. They answer the beautiful and sometimes frightening question that follows every season of growth: now what?
Once we recognize the light within ourselves, what will we do with it? Will we protect it so fiercely that no one else can see it, or will we allow it to become part of how we move through the world?
Ajabu: Remaining Open to Wonder
Ajabu is a Swahili word meaning wonder, miracle, or something extraordinary.
Everything begins with wonder. Wonder interrupts the ordinary. It opens our eyes to the magic we often miss while moving through familiar routines. It invites curiosity and reminds us that there is always more to notice, learn, and understand.
The surface of Ajabu evokes the expanse of a midnight sky. Unexpected bursts of color emerge through deep, translucent glazes like discoveries rising from beneath the surface. The painting asks us to stop over-analyzing long enough to look again, because the extraordinary may already be in front of us. We simply have to remain open enough to see it.
A moment for reflection: What small thing captured your wonder this week?
Joie de Jouer: Choosing the Courage to Play
Joie de Jouer is a French phrase celebrating the joy of play.
Once wonder opens us, play invites us to respond. Play is not childish; it is courageous. It asks us to experiment without guarantees, follow curiosity without demanding immediate results, and create without keeping score.
This painting is wild, energetic, free, and intentionally untamed. Thick intuitive marks and rapid sweeps of color move across the surface without fear of making a mistake. It carries the freedom many of us felt as children before we began asking whether our work was good enough.
After thirty years as an educator, I know that play is not separate from meaningful learning or innovation. Play is often where both begin.
A moment for reflection: Where could you invite more uninhibited play into your life this week?
Viva La Luz: Living Your Light Out Loud
Viva La Luz is a Spanish declaration meaning “Long live the light.”
This painting represents the moment we decide to stop hiding our brightness for fear of being too visible, too joyful, too expressive, or simply too much. Luminous yellows and warm golds collide across the surface as though the sun itself has broken open over the canvas. Layered textures rise to catch the light from different angles, making the painting feel alive and continually shifting.
Viva La Luz is not about performing perfection. It is about choosing visibility. It is a declaration that our warmth, gifts, and humanity were never meant to remain hidden. We live our light out loud, not flawlessly, but intentionally.
A moment for reflection: Where are you holding back your brightness?
Ardū: Uplifting Ourselves and One Another
Ardū is an Irish word meaning to uplift, elevate, or raise high.
This is the natural conclusion of the journey. It is not about rising above others, but about rising into the human beings we were uniquely created to become and helping others rise alongside us.
The composition pulls the eye upward through sweeping vertical movements and striking contrasts. The work holds the emotional weight of overcoming personal trials and building something strong from the fragments that once felt crushing.
Ardū reminds us that uplifting ourselves and uplifting others are not competing acts. When we rise with compassion, courage, and integrity, we create more room for others to rise too.
A moment for reflection: What old weight or narrative are you ready to release?
The Grand Design
Do you see the journey these paintings have created?
This has never been only a collection release. It is a living philosophy: discover your light, nurture your light, carry your light, and become your light.
The little girl on the beach embodied that philosophy without ever knowing it. She allowed her light to speak first. She offered encouragement freely. She responded to beauty without self-consciousness. She connected with another human being through art.
Then her light reached me, and perhaps, through this story, it is reaching you too.
The world does not change only through enormous gestures. It changes one human heart at a time through the quiet, everyday choice to let our inner light speak first.
The Next Question: What Moves Through Us?
As Illuminate the World reaches its conclusion, another body of work is waiting just beyond the curtain.
My upcoming series, Through Me: Where Wonder Finds a Way, begins with a new question: if I am becoming the light, where is that light coming from?
These paintings ask what happens when the artist stops trying to control every answer and becomes willing to listen, receive, and respond.
I am not ready to reveal the full work yet. The first complete public experience will happen at my VECCA solo exhibition opening on August 8. Until then, I will be leaving a few breadcrumbs, and newsletter subscribers will receive the earliest private glimpses before the public reveal.
You Are Invited
All twelve paintings from Illuminate the World are now available to explore.
Perhaps one of them reflects the place where you are standing today. Maybe you need wonder. Maybe you need play. Maybe you are ready to live your light more visibly. Or perhaps you are releasing an old weight and preparing to rise.
I invite you to spend time with each painting and notice which one feels like an anchor for your own journey.
Explore the final release of Illuminate the World and discover the painting that speaks to your rising.
Your light does not have to be enormous to matter.
Sometimes it looks like a child stopping beside an easel and choosing to offer encouragement.
Sometimes that is enough to illuminate an entire world. 🩵
With Joy and Gratitude,
Precious Burger
Contemporary Mixed Media Artist
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