Why am I surprised after visiting an art museum? Those feelings of newness, imagination, and life’s possibilities bubble up in me every time. Yet how often do I go to an art museum, of which there are three top-notch examples here in Minneapolis?

Yesterday we ventured to The Museum of Russian Art, the only museum solely exhibiting Russian works in North America.

In the brochure depicting The Art of Leon Hushcha, raised in a St. Paul Ukrainian-speaking family, the artist says, “When words fail me, I paint.”

His gleaming, diverse paintings speak to me about: Putin’s decimation of Hushcha’s home country, where I believe my mother was also born; the Ukrainian heart and soul; and the artist’s love of color, ultimately jolting me into pondering a local artist friend’s recent question.

Sorry for the light flash in this magnificent painting

How do we balance both joy and grief in our tender psyches?