Day 94 – Fun-A-Day

March 13, 2015

(This is part of a 365 project during my 70th year where I write and illustrate a blog on each day's gift.)

 

Photos by Leslie Miller,  Baltimore Fun-A-Day artist at Gallery 788.

Art’s purpose is to stretch the way we perceive, the way we feel—the way we experience. It helps us in the art of living and, indeed, is a necessary nourishment for us to become fully human.  “Art is an indecent exposure of the consciousness.” (British writer Sir Herbert Read)

An annual art event, Fun-A-Day, was started in 2004 by a group of Philadelphia artists. Baltimore Fun-A-Day, started in 2011, calls area artists to create something new each day in January. These creations are then exhibited in February or March in a group show. Gallery 788, where the 2015 exhibit is now showing, has been the venue for this free and inclusive event for the past two years. 

As one of the participating artists, I did my gallery sitting this afternoon in an atmosphere quieter than opening night March 6th. I had time to look at the exhibit and bathe in the talent surrounding me. Art often changes the way we see through the use of juxtaposition or suggestion of metaphor. Anyone who has seen Edward Weston’s green pepper that looks like a nude will understand this.  Leslie Miller, one of this year’s artists, created a series of photographs taken each day of January, all using fruit as a subject. It’s a series I wish I had conceived. One of her photos, Fruit Fly, uses an orange as part of a badminton shuttlecock. Another depicts a date as a deflated football, entitled Deflate Date. One shows a red pepper as a camera. Title? Pepperazzie, of course! She makes use of surrealism and, at the same time, makes the viewer smile.

My gift today was a mind stretch.
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> DAY 95 Equal Opportunity

Gallery 788
Fun-A-Day
Baltimore Fun-A-Day

You can read my other posts on this project here:
http://bjschupp.blogspot.com/2014/12/365-gifts.html