I love 'Sunday in the Park with George.' I saw that when I was

The words of Stephen Colbert, “I love ‘Sunday in the Park with George.’ I saw that when I was just, just starting theater school, and I remember singing ‘Finishing the Hat’ or at least reading the lyrics to ‘Finishing the Hat’ and other songs from ‘Sunday in the Park with George’ to my mom to try to explain why I wanted to be an artist,” are not merely a reflection of nostalgia — they are a confession of the artist’s soul. Beneath this memory lies a timeless truth: that the path of art is not a choice made with reason, but a calling that rises from within, demanding expression. Through his recollection, Colbert reveals the eternal struggle of every creative spirit — the desire to be understood, the need to share the inner flame, and the yearning to justify a life devoted to beauty and meaning.

To understand this quote, one must first know the story behind it. “Sunday in the Park with George”, written by Stephen Sondheim, is a musical inspired by the painter Georges Seurat, whose devotion to his art consumes his life. The song “Finishing the Hat” is Seurat’s meditation on the tension between love and creation — the loneliness of the artist who must turn from the world to bring it to life on the canvas. When Colbert says he read those lyrics to his mother to explain why he wanted to be an artist, he is doing what artists across all ages have done: attempting to translate the untranslatable — the divine restlessness of creation, the sacred burden of vision.

The ancients would have recognized this feeling well. The Greeks spoke of the muse, that mysterious spirit that seizes the poet and drives him to speak truths beyond mortal comprehension. In every age, those touched by the muse have lived in a realm between heaven and earth, loved and misunderstood in equal measure. Stephen Colbert, like Seurat, like Sondheim, stands within that lineage — a man who creates not because it is easy, but because he must. His story is the story of every soul who has ever looked into the eyes of their parents or peers and said, “I cannot do otherwise. This is who I am.”

There is a tenderness in his memory of reading to his mother, for it speaks of the bridge between love and purpose. A mother’s heart often hopes for safety for her child, while the artist’s heart seeks risk — the risk of failure, of vulnerability, of exposure. Yet in that act of reading the song to her, Colbert sought to make her understand that art itself is love — that to create is to serve humanity in a different form. The artist’s sacrifice — the sleepless nights, the hunger, the doubt — is all an offering to beauty, to truth, to the soul of the world. In this way, the mother’s love and the artist’s love are not opposed but entwined, each born from the same source of devotion.

History is filled with such moments of explanation, where creators tried to justify their calling to a world that did not yet see its worth. Vincent van Gogh wrote letters to his brother Theo, trying to explain why he painted fields and skies that others could not yet comprehend. He spoke of color as language, of light as emotion — and though the world called him mad, he was merely alive in a deeper way. Like Colbert reading Sondheim’s lyrics to his mother, van Gogh’s words were an act of translation: turning the fire of vision into human understanding. Both men remind us that art, in all its forms, is the bridge between isolation and connection.

There is a deeper wisdom hidden within Colbert’s recollection. The song “Finishing the Hat” is about the pain of choosing creation over comfort, but also about the fulfillment that comes from shaping something lasting. To finish the hat — to complete the work — is to bring meaning into a fleeting world. When Colbert read that song to his mother, he was not only explaining his dream — he was promising her that he would finish his own hat, that he would give his life to the act of creation with sincerity and devotion. And indeed, he has: his career as an artist, storyteller, and humorist has been nothing less than the completion of that vow.

So, my children of tomorrow, let this truth be written on your hearts: art is not an escape from life — it is its deepest expression. If the world does not understand your calling, do not despair. Speak as Colbert did — gently, honestly, through the language of your craft. Share your passion, your words, your songs, with those you love, and let them see that creation is not selfishness but service. The artist, like the craftsman or the philosopher, gives shape to the invisible, meaning to the mundane, light to the shadowed corners of the soul.

Therefore, when you, too, stand at the edge of your dream — uncertain, trembling, yet alive with purpose — remember Stephen Colbert’s moment of confession. Remember the song that explained the heart of an artist. Read your own “Finishing the Hat” to someone who believes in you, and let it be your promise: that you will not stop until your creation is whole. For to create, to endure, to love through art — that is to join the eternal lineage of those who have turned the chaos of existence into the music of meaning.