100% Real Juice: Designer Guy & the Goddess of Love

One of Mia’s required classes in the Graphic Design program is called Concepts in Design. The students look at art and design through the centuries and what makes design what it is, bla bla bla. In short, lots of design.

It’s actually a pretty interesting class made more fascinating by the professor, a swarthy Frenchman built like a sea captain, with a six-inch long bushy mustache that makes him look like a retired Pugwash. He’s hard to understand sometimes as ‘e talk like dis, but has great insight overall, and always makes interesting points.

Every class has a slide show of this art and this design, and during one class a huge picture of the Venus de Milo flashed onscreen. Daunting in a way, considering what class we were in, after all the Venus de Milo is a very classical work. Frenchie paused for a bit and then said, accent not included:

“The Venus statue that you see here, when she was made she had all her arms and attributes. But it was through the ages, after she lost some parts, that she became the epiphany of beauty.”

As a finished work, she was a jewel. But after she broke, priceless.

I like to think that applies to the rest of us, too. How wonderful to think that after time has passed, when we are no longer young and fresh, that the experience of life is what adds to our features. Our battles scar us, but not necessarily in a negative way. In fact, they make us who we are.

Every minute that goes by, every hour and every day, with every hardship and every joy, we become more human. And, more beautiful.