The artist Nikita Regina sent this Vase with Irises (1890) postcard that shows a Vincent van Gogh painting I was lucky enough to see in the Rijksmuseum once upon a starry, starry night. The magical quality of the card and Vincent’s work is beautiful, but Nikita’s needlepoint stamp outshines it all.

Besides having lots of Vincent paraphernalia in my office, I also could listen over and over to Don McLean’s song Vincent (which some call Starry, Starry Night). I had the original American Pie album, and that song concluded our 8th Grade dance. But it was Vincent that I listened to more often. That song sent me to the public library to learn as much as I could about the artist. What a bit of serendipity that I ended up living a 10-minute walk from the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam many years later. Or that last October, I sat on a cushion at the Immersive Van Gogh exhibit in Minneapolis and watched that experience play through three full times.

I never forgot how that fascination with Van Gogh all started. With a song. This song.

Just look at how special this is. Nikita used my magic number for the stamp value. Thank you.