Paris Watercolor Art and What is Yet to Come

A Memory of Sainte-Chapelle, Paris © Sophia Khan

I hope this letter finds you safe and well, and being uplifted by the spirit of the holiday season and the promise of a new year to come. For me, personally, my art has been an escape for the past several months. This means that new subjects, new ways of painting in watercolor, and new color schemes have been emerging in my studio. I am so grateful. Being an Artist means being able to cultivate something of beauty, for ourselves and others. It’s a celebration of life and a knowing that beauty always adds value, meaning, poetry, healing, and inspiration to our lives. But perhaps most of all, beauty is a mirror to how we hope to see ourselves in our highest potential.

The above watercolor was one I have been painting on and off for a while, recently completed by adding the finishing touches of iridescent gold and deep blue ink. It is available in my online shop here, if these brushstrokes and the city of Paris calls to you. It is a painted memory of Sainte-Chapelle.

One of the joys of traveling solo is that you can do whatever it is that makes your heart sing. Isn’t this one of the very reasons we travel, after all. I returned to this chapel twice in one day, to take in the breadth of its beauty and be graced by the stories illuminated within its stones and stained glass windows. Its history and story are one I return to every now and then, all the while always leaving something to my imagination, always retaining some sense of mystery. I don’t have to know everything about the places I visit, all in one visit, but I do have to feel like something of the place has moved me deeply enough for it to stay within my memory.

Every year, around this time, I typically write an “Annual Review” in which I highlight the year in terms of my personal, spiritual, and professional/creative life. This year I’ve been inspired to do something a bit differently.

I recently saw an interview with renowned Architect Renzo Piano and his son Carlo Piano, with the publisher Europa Editions, discussing their new book Atlantis: A Journey in Search of Beauty. I have been drawn to Renzo Piano’s work since my time studying Architecture, so I was very happy to learn of this new book. In the conversation, he said something I found very powerful, which has stayed with me. He said, to paraphrase, that it is not about what we have accomplished in life, but what we have yet to accomplish.

And so this year, for the annual review that I will write, I am not as interested in highlighting what has happened this year, but looking towards the next year whilst carrying the seeds of what I have planted this year, that supports this future. For me, this looks like composing a collection of dreams and ambitions I would love to work towards; with each supported by remembering all the ways from my past in which I have already begun planting their seeds. In this way, the focus is towards the future, while in the background there is the evidence and support from how I have been cultivating a path towards this future, from my past.

If the idea of writing an annual review, in this manner is appealing to you, I invite you to perhaps explore this for your own personal dreams and wishes.

However it may be that you usher in this new year, I hope it is beautiful, it is blessed, and points you towards more joy, tranquility, and hope in the new year to come. Anything new always feels like an invitation. I hope your invitation is one that graces you with how you most wish to be welcomed into this new beginning. Because if 2020 has taught me something, it is that whatever our dream, it matters and the time for it will never be more ripe than now.

Until next time, I wish you and your loved ones much serenity, beauty, wellness, and grace.

xx ~ Sophia

p.s. If your are near a Barnes and Noble, or any other book store, be sure to check the travel section for the recent edition of Lodestars Anthology, for which I was commissioned to provide artwork for their Puebla, Mexico story, pictured below.