When I moved to North Carolina the first thing I did, even before I found a job, was volunteer as a docent at the local art gallery. Time passed, I moved, got married and moved back. Since then I haven't done any docent work for a while. So today at lunch my wife and I were discussing North Carolina, its pros and cons and one of the positives was the Arts Council. I was relating that since the change in state government a year ago though, the conversation about arts, as in support for programs, has been cut-off at the state level, so any progress happening at the county local level, where I had been, is entirely due to the efforts of council directors, staff, artists and docents making a difference with each public contact.
One of the difficulties with docent work, I was saying, is being able to tell when an individual is uncomfortable with or intimidated by the art in front of them. So often the reasons for art appear to be in its simple utility - the what am I supposed to do with this? kind of feeling. It seems many people like pictures on their walls or useful pottery and such, but what about when the picture isn't particularly pretty or the pottery that isn't dishwasher safe? And therein is a cool thing about art: its use as an absolute paradox in our lives.
I related seeing a painting of a forest fire in our galley during one show. As I recall the back story of the painting, the artist had an acquaintance who lost their home to this fire and as they were fleeing the man stopped to look back. The painting reflects the horror seeing their land on fire. Now this painting, as all her landscape work, was very large size and carried an intensity worthy of the event, but some how she also painted into this scene something I thought unexpected: in the midst of the fire, slightly to the left of center, was a smaller tree whose core was totally engulfed by the essence of the fire. What I felt the first time I saw the work, and still carry today, was how I could feel the tree surrendering itself to being burned and how this surrender was somehow a consummation with its life.
Art can do just this: present Life's paradox. By making public the essence of what we deeply fear will destroy us, we can at the same time feel the outcome to the surrender of our own beautiful mortality, which cracks open wide the heart's vision of our eternal nature. It has been said that the death of the body, perhaps metaphorically as well as phyiscally, is the most intimate experience we will ever know. Art understands this.
