What a Broken Vase Taught Me About Beauty
A while ago, I was looking at one of my paintings that features a simple vessel with flowers growing from it.
As I stood there, I found myself wondering why I return to this image again and again. Out of all the possible subjects I could paint, why vessels?
The answer came quietly.
Because I see myself in them.
And perhaps you do too.
We All Know What It Feels Like to Break
Life has a way of leaving marks on us.
Sometimes they come through loss.
Sometimes through disappointment.
Sometimes through words spoken years ago that we still carry today.
Other times they come through dreams that never unfolded as we had imagined.
None of us reaches adulthood untouched.
For a long time, I thought beauty belonged to those whose lives appeared whole. Those who seemed to have everything together. Those whose stories looked smooth and uncomplicated.
The older I become, the less I believe that.
Today, I find myself drawn to a different kind of beauty.
The Beauty That Has a Story
When I visit museums or galleries, I certainly admire technical excellence. Yet the works that stay with me are rarely the most polished.
They are the ones that carry honesty.
The ones that reveal something deeply human.
Perhaps that is why I love painting with layers. A painting develops through countless decisions. Some colours disappear beneath new ones. Marks are covered. Others remain visible. What once looked like a mistake often becomes an essential part of the finished work.
Life feels very similar.
We cannot erase every difficult chapter.
But perhaps we don't have to.
Perhaps those chapters become part of the beauty.
The Potter Sees More Than We Do
One of the images in Scripture that has always moved me is found in the book of Jeremiah.
The prophet watches a potter shaping a vessel from clay. When the vessel collapses in the potter's hands, he does not throw it away. He patiently begins again, shaping it into something beautiful (Jeremiah 18:1-6).
What strikes me most is not the damaged vessel.
It is the patience of the potter.
He sees beyond what is broken.
He sees what can still become.
Even if you don't read the Bible, I think we all long for someone to look at our lives that way.
Not through the lens of failure.
But through the lens of possibility.
Painting Hope
This is why vessels continue to appear in my paintings.
They remind me that beauty is not the absence of brokenness.
Beauty often grows because brokenness has been met with grace.
The flowers emerging from the vessel are not there because life has been easy.
They bloom because love continued its work.
Perhaps that is the quiet miracle of restoration.
Not that our story is rewritten.
But that it is redeemed.
A Quiet Invitation
Maybe today you can only see the places where life has left its marks.
I understand that feeling.
But what if those places are not signs that something has gone wrong?
What if they are the very places where compassion is growing, where wisdom is taking root, and where beauty is quietly unfolding?
The next time you notice an old tree shaped by the wind, an ancient building weathered by time, or a handmade vessel carrying the marks of its journey, pause for a moment.
Perhaps beauty has never been about perfection.
Perhaps beauty has always been about love that refuses to give up.
Featured painting: Restored in Beauty
Scripture for reflection: Jeremiah 18:1-6, Isaiah 61:3, 2 Corinthians 4:7
Words to Live With: I Am Wonderfully Made - because your worth has never depended on a flawless story, but on the One who continues to shape it with patience, grace, and love.