Chronicle Books - From Rain to Rainbows

Maybe you are a person who loves the rain; maybe you jumped in puddles as a kid and sneaked out to dance in downpours as a teenager. Or maybe you see things a bit more classically; maybe to you, dark weather does suggest sorrow, and a rainbow our hope of relief from sorrow. It doesnt matter. Whatever your personal associations with these images, this book is saying the same basic two things to you. One: Nothing stays the same forever. Life is a progression.

There are good parts and bad parts, dreamy parts and silly parts, tragedies and healing, crummy days and fabulous days, rain and rainbows. Whatever is hurting us will someday come to an end. And that is a solace. But you know what? Whatever is making us gleeful will also someday come to an end. And thats a consolation of a different kindthe kind that reminds you to perk up and pay attention, to cherish both the sound of the rain on the roof and the arc of color in the sky that catches you utterly by surprise, because both will be gone before you know it. And, two: When someone creates something, that creation is a gift.

The artists whose work is featured in this book have made these images as gifts for you, whether they knew thats what they were doing or not. Its a common misconception that art has to be hard that the more people a work of art confuses or shuts out, the better it is. We say: Let the artist bring gladness to the viewer if thats what the artist wants to do. The viewer just has to be ready to receive the gift. Both the fruits of human creativity and the wonders of nature have this in common: we possess the astonishing ability to take them in through our senses and let them nourish our souls. Art can be the nudge we need to move away from the endless circling of our own thoughts, to move toward an outlook thats just a little bit brighter.

T o m ov e fr om ra i n t o r a in b o w s .