Dear artist I saw one day in the big city,

You are an inspiration. The artwork you were working on as I walked past was beautiful. The bold colours, the sharp lines, the design.

Maybe to you it was just another artwork you were paid to do. Maybe doing artworks in store windows pays well, and financial gain is why you decided to become an artist. Seems unlikely.

The care you took, making sure each line was precisely where it was supposed to be. Someone once told me, or maybe I read in a book, "An artist puts a little of themself into everything they create". And I've never felt it was more true than when I gazed upon your creation in that store window.

Plenty of people were walking past, paying little heed to your efforts, and at the time I couldn't understand that. I couldn't understand being so wrapped up in getting where you needed to go, or checking that thing on your phone to miss the beauty right in front of you. I do it everyday.

This thing or that thing always manages to distract me. On this day though, I was aware. I was aware of the city, of the crowds surging around me, of an artist painting in a window. And I thought to myself, "These people are missing out on life".

They weren't really, of course. Perhaps they had seen you painting yesterday, and the day before, and the day before that up to the day you approached the giant canvas with your big dreams and your hopeful plan. Maybe they glanced up and saw your progression from the previous day and smiled to themselves and kept walking.

The irony is that I was walking with my family and they walked right past you, continuing their conversation like they hadn't even noticed your efforts. And I was forced to keep up.

I only saw your artwork for a few seconds, the giant lady standing out from a brightly coloured background, but I stopped in the street. I stopped in the street and was suddenly made aware of the fleetingness of humanity's attention span. Bittersweet.

So, dear artist, I thank you. For putting a bit of brightness out into the world. For making me smile. For proving once and for all that artist is a beautiful job title.

Thanks,

Phoenix