ART IS…Episode 4
WHY DO I LOVE ART?
There is something about how I look at things and see things that is unique to me that did not get interrupted by family or public education. I notice things, which does not mean I would make a good witness! Noticing small things, odd things, relationships among things. I was the slowpoke on a family hike because I was mesmerized by minutiae. Slow on museum or state fair visits for the same reasons. I got left behind pretty often, staring at the art and then chatting with the guards as I waited for my family to find me.
I spent time looking at how the light moved and illumined things, how natural and man made things were assembled, how people, animals and things interact. To this day, I am not bored watching shadows move on a sunny day.
Beauty of lilacs
I take great pleasure in watching my tall lilacs twist and shake in the wind, imagining lines of force and elasticity that keep them from breaking. I am fascinated that leaves come in all different shapes, sizes, colors and modes of attachment casting different sorts of moving shadows.
Ant trails, pill bugs, sea gulls, even squirrels ( my garden nemesis) have movement patterns and light reflections that make me want to look.
I need to look at things.
I mean I really need to look!
Indoors I need to have the right number of things to look at. Not too many. Not too few.
Is that odd? Maybe. But that tendency to focus so intently on sight was neither interrupted nor blunted in childhood. Perhaps my need to look is more intense than most. But, it tells me that, on balance, everyone with sight has this potential to derive pleasure from looking deeply at things.
Do I form stories around these intense experiences? Sometimes. But I am just as likely to be quiet, wordlessly intense in the experience. That place of being without words is so peaceful. Time departs. Ego departs. It is lovely.
Looking at art fulfills this need. Museums are one of the public places where I can look intently, imagine much and be at peace.
How could I not LOVE ART
how could I not love art when it provides such a peaceful interlude for looking?
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