By: Marie Jen Galilo, Staff Writer
Content warning: mention of suicide.
Art is more than aesthetics, talent, and skill — it’s a pathway towards peace and healing. The Artistic Accountant directed by Dom Fegan is a short documentary featuring accountant and sacred geometry artist, Bert J. Haché. In 12 minutes, this film explores how art helps people find a sense of calm amidst life’s hardships.
Standing outside in the winter cold wearing a brown wool coat, trapper hat, and shades, Haché happily welcomes viewers to the accounting firm he works at. Haché takes viewers on a trip down memory lane to tell the story of how he simultaneously became an accountant and an artist.
Haché’s interest in numbers began when he was about four to five years old. After working in an income tax firm, he worked his way up to a management position within just six months. For Haché, number manipulation is like a puzzle, and he enjoys the process of solving them. Haché lives with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), which influences his drive for precision and accuracy, but he views OCD as an “asset” that makes his sacred geometry artwork possible.
The scene transitions from Haché at his accounting desk to him drawing evenly-spaced geometric shapes. According to EBSCO, “Sacred geometry is the study of geometric forms and concepts that hold spiritual and symbolic significance across various cultures and historical periods.” The camera pans out to reveal intricate shapes formed by the overlapping boundaries of layered circles. The foundation for Haché’s drawings is the “flower of life,” which, according to the film, is “one of the basic shapes of sacred geometry consisting of equally spaced overlapping circles that represent creation and unity.”
We then return to Haché’s office, where he shares the heartbreaking story of losing his brother and the grief that followed. The subsequent scene in which he stands against a wall enwrapped in the projected images of his artwork visually depicts how his art is a safe space for his mind, sheltering him from life’s hardships. Haché then fades away, but his art remains, as if he became one with his drawings. Sacred geometry requires precision, and precision requires focus. When Haché draws, his focus becomes an anchor that grounds him in the present.
Only by learning to embrace our differences, which we often perceive as flaws, can we truly live in the present.
Haché reminds us that perfection is an unattainable standard, and only by learning to embrace our differences, which we often perceive as flaws, can we truly live in the present. Near the film’s end, Haché stands in a projected flower of life, showing how the process of creating art is like a blooming flower that stretches its petals outwards to unite us all — the artist, the art, the natural world, and the viewer.
I believe that every past experience you had changes you in some way, no matter how small that change may be, and this film was no different. This documentary was my door into the world of sacred geometry. As a perfectionist, it was comforting to hear Haché — who’s a perfectionist himself — say that we must learn to accept our imperfections in order to fully experience the limited time we were given to live out on this Earth, because life itself is imperfect, but still meaningful. I recommend this film to anyone who’s looking for a short yet meaningful watch, and to those who are looking to understand the connection between art, grief, and health through mundane lived experiences.
The Artistic Accountant is available to be streamed free of charge on CBC Gem.
