Leonardo da Vinci [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

“Renaissance |ˈrenəˌsäns, -ˌzäns|
the revival of art and literature under the influence of classical models in the 14th–16th centuries.
• the culture and style of art and architecture developed during this era.
• (as noun a renaissance) a revival of or renewed interest in something: rail travel is enjoying a renaissance.”

— New Oxford American Dictionary

"You have only been an unemployed for two work days. You have no reason to stress out, engineers wait for months for work. You are two days into this." He had said.

I snuff, turning over. Easy for all of them to say with their degrees and fancy knowledge. I think to myself.

And then like a whisper.

"You are intelligent." I remember her words as I learned this past year.

"You know, I replied into the darkness, 'in renaissance times artists never worried about the status of employment... they were offered food, and a roof over their heads to pursue their work no questions asked. They studied with their master artists like apprentices and once they learned those skills they themselves became artists...and they were employed by anyone and everyone."

"You know what you need? A 'patron'." He echoed with the word that reverberated in my mind.

"Exactly!" I quickly replied back.

I stopped.

Wait, thats it.

Renaissance, a time when artists congregated, lived, thrived, explored and found.

That is what I need to be. Sure, we all need to eat, but what is the renaissance artist?

“Rise of the artist depended on a number of non-aesthetic factors.

1. Patrons of the Renaissance were more than people of power – they were also learned and cultivated.
2. Households were hospitable to all kinds of learned individuals: poets, philosophers, mathematicians and scholars.
3. Into this world the most privileged artists were admitted.
- Artists continued to work with their hands, but they could be forgiven the paint stains on their clothes if they knew the manners of the court, understood the conversation, and could contribute in the way of ideas.
- Painters and sculptors were anxious to show they were educated people – closer to poets and philosophers – people who did not soil their hands. At least, they might be considered closer to architects, who were known to be able to command theoretical knowledge.”

— http://www.uwgb.edu/malloyk/lecture_6.htm

Two points resonate:

The artists of the Renaissance had a higher purpose:
They wanted to make art means of searching for the meaning of existence.

Thus begins a 2014 writers embarkment on a renaissance artist journey! What can the renaissance way teach us? What can it possibly show us in regards to collaborating with our community, our society, our families and friends? What can it teach us to not do?

A Millennia collision with a Renaissance Way.

REnaissance