Christina’s World

I first saw Andrew Wyeth’s painting Christina’s World in July 2023 at the MoMA in Midtown, New York. It was my third time at the museum. I can’t remember passing by it on my previous visits. I stood in front of the painting I had stumbled upon in a hallway for a few minutes. I marveled at the detail in Wyeth’s brush. How brilliant it was to see the subject’s entire world without seeing her face.

I returned to the painting after exploring the exhibit I was originally trying to find. I snapped a photo and made it my screensaver for a while.

When I returned to the museum in March of this year, I searched the floors trying to find the hallway that kept this painting. I found it and stood next to a man who was carrying a Strand Bookstore tote bag. He eventually left while I remained admiring the painting for ten minutes. People around me shuffling through the hallway.

While standing in front of the painting, I looked up where this was painted. To my surprise, he painted it in Cushing, Maine. In that moment, I knew I wanted to go see it.

Years ago, when my grandmother was still alive, she randomly sent me a novel inspired by Christina Olson’s life. A Piece of the World by Christina Baker Kline. In the pages, a delicate flower was pressed, almost as though she had used it as a bookmark. I kept it on my desk for months before it fell apart.

I didn’t put two and two together, that someone important to me had introduced me to this story years before I saw the painting until I realized where Wyeth had painted it. The miraculous mysteries of life, the invisible string connecting events.

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On a beautiful cloudless day at the end of August, the day before my birthday, my two aunts and I went to go see it. I didn’t have any expectations about this place. I didn’t think about going there beyond knowing I wanted to see it myself.

I was taken aback by how beautiful the land was. How close to the sea the house actually is. It was being renovated so we couldn’t go inside. We glanced in through the windows. It was like looking into a different time, still reserved for now.

I was most in awe of how this spot was a big inspiration for Wyeth in his work. How he sought refuge here, how out of the way this place was from everything else. How this really was Christina Olson’s entire life.

What I didn’t expect was to see a graveyard by the water. To see this is where Wyeth was buried, directly facing where his famous painting was formed. To see this is where Christina Olson and her family were buried too, going back for many generations.

Art inspires us in different ways. I love paintings the same way I love writing. Creating something out of nothing. Having an idea and exploring all the possibilities and work it takes of bringing it to life. I can’t paint, but I admire those who can. Painters inspire me to write in a similar way writers inspire me to write. That these artists believed enough in what they were doing to share it and inspire others.