There’s a giaaaaaaaaaaaaant art festival a few hours away from my house. And a few weeks ago I pinkie-promised a one Juli-YEAH that I would go. And that’s serious business.
Two weekends back was the last weekend for the full art show.
Have you ever been in a place where you know you should go…but you’re just so tired? And let’s talk about how backed up the laundry was. And how the trunk of my car has stuff left in there since THE FLOOD because I haven’t moved it to the basement yet. Let’s talk about how there are always shelves to clear/ dust/ tidy. So: life was full of stuff, and I was in the middle of meh, but…I had made a pinkie promise, so you know I was going to do that.
And, I’m SO GLAD I did.
ALL THE ART.
The art reminded me of things. It reminded me of beautiful things and how creative and wonderful and different people can be. Yes!
I loved three things especially, even though I also loved being there all day with Julia and Johanna (and my delicious fresh food! I find hippy food and I bless the Lord, for it is often nonexistent). Thing is, though, I didn’t photograph them. That’s funny, isn’t it? But, it’s because they were too wonderful to wrap my mind around, and I felt like I couldn’t capture them appropriately…or maybe, also, I didn’t even think to photograph since I was so wrapped up. Anyway! Who cares? No one. Let me tell you about art.
First of all, there was this GIANT art thing, in the atrium of an abandoned bank. (RIGHT?? Can I just renovate gorgeous old buildings all time with my life? Is that a thing?) The art piece was the size of a SUV, probably, and three-dimensional but it was pieces of broken glass and folded towels and fabrics stretching to the ceiling and I was like, “This reminds me of a shipwreck, like the Titanic,” and WHADDAYA KNOW, I was right…for the description said the exact same thing. It was titled, “Shipwreck.”
I KNOW MY ARTS.
There were also six women about the atrium of the abandoned bank…performing an interpretive dance. I LOVED it. They were constantly breaking their performance space. So, imagine they’re performing and a crowd starts to gather, right? But they’d run to the perimeter of the crowd gathered, then run back, then run out…until they were in a new space. It was STUNNING. And hard to explain. But, you know what? That’s OK. I tried. They also played around with a bit of circus-y stuff I’ve tried before so that was cool, too.
LASTLY there was this photographer who had taken a photography class somewhere and, he took some pics of his brother in the process. Now, his brother is his twin…and has cerebral palsy. Somewhere along the line of photographing things, people in his life encouraged him to make a display using the photographs he had of his brother.
YOU. GUYS.
He interspersed the images with write-ups, and he made a process. So, you started with the very first photographs he took, in the photography class from long ago. He talked about his brother in the accompanying plaques, about his brother’s disability. And then he talked about his internal life, being brother to this other man. He mentioned how he has a form of survivor’s guilt; when, in families, there is a well-sibling and a disabled-sibling, it’s easy to compare…and, even more so, since they’re twins. He wrote that his parents never mentioned anything…but, he always wondered: did his presence in the womb cause extra stress? Did his umbilical cord choke things? The writings were deeply, deeply personal.
Towards the end of exhibit, he wrote that his brother never traveled, although he did, as a photographer. And, one time, he asked his brother to accompany him on a long trip (across the country, if memory serves). There the photos transitioned from black-and-white to a few colored shots.
The entire series had been done in a way that was personal and raw and…respectful. He didn’t approach the subject matter (his brother) all, “This is a disabled man, pity him,” but, rather, “this is my brother, this is his life.”
And, the final plaque touched me.
Art.
Do you know how wonderful it is that people can take things and make things out of them? Isn’t that positively magical? And someone else can look at it and be inspired?
That is what this art show did for me: it pulled me far, far from the repetitive nature of chores and reminded me of all the beautiful things in the world, all the things that have been created…and all the ones that can still be created.
YES.
LOVE.
ART.
Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Thanks for the pinkie-promise, Juli-YEAH. 