PART I

This is a true story.

So, this man came up from behind me - you think you’ve heard this story before, you haven’t. Or maybe you have. The man says, ‘Can I help you?’

I’ll tell you where I was. I was in a building on the corner of 72nd and York Avenue. More precisely, I was standing on the seventh floor of Sotheby’s in NYC. There’s a small, black book in my hand…

PART II

The story began when I attended an event at Sotheby's Auction House in NYC where a very ugly, dark, slimy and green piece of art (I literally described it like that to a friend) was being auctioned for a fundraiser.

See. Gross. Sorry you had to see that, but I just had to make sure you saw that.

Other works of art were on display alongside the ugly one, and those other pieces would go on auction later in London.

I circled the room. Nothing that interesting. Until.

In the corner of the room, at the back, was a small painting. It was not particularly attractive when viewed from a distance, or at first glance I suppose. But coming closer, the small strokes made an invitation entirely. For. Me.

Look closer. And look closer I did. For five days straight.

PART III

Looking like a fricken detective, I went to Sotheby’s with my little black book to compile little black letters with my black pen in my black book, trying to solve a mystery about this stunning painting.

While I was working the event, someone noticed how enraptured I became near the painting. ‘You know, it’s open to the public. The painting is here till the end of the week, before it goes to London to be sold. You can come and see it any time in those five days.’

I was working crazy hours and managed to somehow get off early to go the next day. And the next, and the next. Me and my little black book. It was during one of those trips back, that this man comes up from behind me and says -

‘How can I help?’

Those words made me want to cry. I could feel it before I even turned around to face him. Sure, I was tired. I’d been working a lot and I had a lot of questions in my life at that time. Like, nagging questions, questions that I wasn’t dealing with or beginning to engage with, so they just kept piling up, making me feel super uncomfortable.

And somehow, there I was, standing in front of this painting as if it could answer some of these questions.

The painting itself was called Le Givre a Giverny (‘the frost at Giverny’). Monet painted it in the beginning of 1885. When he first moved to Giverny with his family he would travel to Italy and the south of France to paint. ‘One always needs a certain amount of time to get familiar with a new landscape’ said Monet.

‘His time away from Giverney allowed him to recalibrate his new objectives in landscape painting’

Come January 1885, Money was met with a heavy snowstorm which ‘recast the region in colours of wintery blue, silver and grey.’

By the time the snow melted, nine oils, including Le Givre a Giverny were completed.

On January 23 2013, I woke at 2:30am, I couldn’t sleep. Said to a friend the next day that I wanted to read Julian of Norwich’s ‘Revelations of Divine Love’. I also said that I was thinking of Monet, and wondered what he was saying to me in ‘that painting with the two people standing, staring into someplace good.’

Painting en plein air (a French expression meaning ‘in the open air’ and refers

to the act of painting outdoors, capturing the essence of a landscape or subject by incorporating natural light, colour and movement), Monet’s colour and rapid brushstrokes, became known as Impressionism.

Impressionism is characterised by ‘relatively small, thin, yet visible brush strokes, open composition’ (Ouching It - small, little changes we make, that are visible), emphasis on ‘accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating the effects of the passage of time), [Ouching It - light, truth, the passing of time as this truth changes us]. It’s ‘ordinary subject material, inclusion of movement as a crucial element of human perception and experience, and unusual visual angles’ [Ouching It - movement, not stuck, getting unstuck]

The word ‘impressionism’ came from the Monet’s painting ‘Impression,’ and was coined by art critic Louis Leroy. The term itself was coined rather satirically by Leroy actually, but Impressionists appropriated it for themselves. From lemons, lemonade sort of thing I think.

That ‘someplace good’ that the two figures were looking out at was Île aux Orties, an island in the Epte river that was owned by Monet. The other paintings depicting this place remind me of a mushroom ploom. They’re beautiful. Don’t get me wrong. But when you compare them to Le G G…

And the two strangers? Well there’s no big

The two figures in the work are the artist’s son and step-son Michel Monet and Jean-Pierre Hoschedé. Michel was from Claude’s first marriage to Camille, and he had remarried and Jean was a son to his second wife.

After the death of his wife Camille, on 5 September 1879, a ‘grief-stricken Monet (resolving never to be mired in poverty again) began in earnest to create some of his best paintings of the 19th century.’

Monet attempted suicide prior to all this, tried to throw himself into the Seine. Can you imagine?

Basically

I couldn’t stay long looking at the painting, cause there was work to do. So off to work I went, but at the end of the night I came back to the painting and someone working at Sotheby’s said to me,

‘You know, we’re open to the public, and anyone can come and view this art while it’s here. All these pieces will be here for the rest of the week, so if you like, come back’

I was working crazy hours. Like, psycho hours from what I remember, but because I had worked the fundraising gig in the evening, I knew I had leverage to ask for some more time off.

Maybe I lied (I hope I didn’t!) or what I said to my boss, but I asked to ‘leave early’, like 5:30pm early. I went through the non-discript streets (to me) of the upper east side, back to Sotheby’s.

The woman working at Sotheyb’s had told me,

‘Just come back, and come directly up to this floor, you don’t need to sign in or anything’

I remember vases lined up behind glass in the entry-way, and I remember looking up if they had a cafe (which they did). I remember wondering if anyone would stop me from getting what I wanted, which was to see that painting one more time. Maybe two more times. Maybe three more times.

My palms were a bit sweaty. It felt like a date. Like I was meeting someone for the first time, and I had all these impressions of who they might be, but wasn’t quite sure what I’d find in the end.

A little black book and pen were in my bag, and I took these out as I approached the painting. It was as if this painting was holding answers, and I was ready to write them all down.

Enjoy. I enjoyed the painting. I enjoyed looking at it, and enjoyed what I saw.

If you were stuck and had a problem, and a friend asked you this question it might make you sort of cry. His question wasn’t, ‘Can I assist you as a rep of a buyer?’ To me, his question was ‘You have a need and I want to help you, so how can I help you?’

My mind skimmed all the needs. Yes. Um, there are some things I need help with.

A few weeks afterward I awoke in the night, wrestless about my life. The next day I wrote to a friend:

‘And then I lay awake thinking of Monet and what he was saying to me in that painting with the two people standing, staring into someplace good.’

Track with me here. I’m the man in Sotheby’s, tapping you on the shoulder. You turn around. I say, ‘Can I help you?’ Ouching It is a platform to share stories where people got unstuck from stuff, and where they didn’t do it alone - there were others cheering them on and telling them the truth and encouraging them.

Ouching It isn’t me helping you, it’s me tapping you on the shoulder and asking if there’s something you know deep down needs changed, open, put into the light, a dream you gotta chase and aren’t, a conversation that needs had that isn’t being had, something to overcome that will involve pain to get through.

What I’ve seen as I’ve interviewed people is that when they got honest with themselves and when others around them got honest with them, those relationships flourished. What I mean is, they were super strong, safe friendships/relationships because they were truth-telling, not hiding, and while it’s super uncomfortable at times, it’s so rewarding to know someone can tell you the truth and want the very best for you in the truth (which might be hard).

Monet painted Le Givre a Giverny in the beginning of 1885. When he first moved to Giverny with his family he would travel to Italy and the south of France to paint. ‘One always needs a certain amount of time to get familiar with a new landscape’ said Money.