Yesterday I saw one of Frank Gehry's projects up close - I'll post pictures here after this entry.
I know people see him as a major visionary in architecture and doubtless he has made great strides in helping people see that a building does not have to be a box but the whole time all I could think of was Sam Mockbee's Rural Studio project and how these two ideas need to be joined.
As a society we seem to accept the idea that art does not or need not serve a purpose. We choose up sides, those of us who believe art is important are forced into defending the indefensible while those who think the survival and care of humanity is more important than anything else feel forced to condemn "high art" as frivolous.
Your soul is not frivolous and art does not need to be useless.
I come back to the central idea, over and over again - art that is not created in the spirit of compassionate communication is weak. Art can soar, it can restore us all, art is the backbone of architecture, the impetus behind the great gardens of the world, the fuel that keeps the writer writing, the carpenter building and the rest of us tending to our daily chores.
Where would we be without music, without color? We need art but more than that - we need to stop thinking that a housing project, a school, an employment center, a farm, a social program and any of a million other things have to exist outside of art in order to be useful.
I suppose today I am praying and I suppose the substance of my prayer is that we learn to recognize that beauty does not cost us one cent extra and that everyone deserves to live in beauty.
Rich or poor, conservative or liberal, male or female, scientist, accountant, plumber, poet or artist - you deserve compassion, you deserve dignity, you deserve beauty.
We all do.
This is an article about the Rural Studio, pass it on.
http://speakingoffaith.publicradio.org/programs/2008/ruralstudio/mockbee_ruralstudio.shtml
random thoughts on the passage through an ordinary life.
About Me
- Stephanie Farrington
- I figure if there's an average person, it's probably me. That is to say, I have lived in a few places, probably about average, I have a post-secondary education and an unfinished MFA - which is probably average for people who pursue and education, I'm hitting middle age, my job has been downsized and resized so many times it's safe to say I've never had any job security. I live an average life on the precarious edge of the middle class. I'm happily married to an American, I hold Canadian citizenship, for now. But I'm so disgusted with just about everything going on in Canada that I may pursue changing my citizenship to match my husband's. I am fiercely loyal to American ideals, in part because they make sense and in part because I am descended from a signer of the Declaration of Independence. The idea of an equitable democracy, a meritocracy - that appeals to me. I write, I read, talk, take pictures and worry - just like everybody else. The hopes I hold most dear are for the health and well being of my immediate family, myself included, and the continuance of my happy life with my wonderful husband. Everything else seems manageable.
No comments:
Post a Comment