July 18, 2015
(This is part of a 365 project
during my 70th year where I write and illustrate a blog on each
day’s gift.)
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| Baltimore's 2015 Artscape |
Scape as a noun is a flower stalk arising from the
ground. Scape as a suffix is a view. Artscape is well named. Two days at
Artscape and I could not help noticing—and feeling—the power of art and the
determination of a sullied city to overcome its history.
Webster defines art as “something
that is created with imagination and skill and that is beautiful or that
expresses important ideas or feelings.” Artscape is this and more. This weekend included
visual and other traditional arts but it was the music that created the most
powerful art as sounds threaded through the crowd to weave a multi-cultural
tapestry of energy and joy. There is art
in what the eye sees, the ear hears, the tongue tastes, the skin feels, and the
nose smells. But there is also art in what the mind can imagine. I saw one
musician who had crafted a wind instrument out of PVC pipe and I saw a hydroponic
garden made from PVC pipes.
Art is an experience. Today was a personal decontamination
for me—away from 24/7 news, TV baseball, stale inside air and bland
suburbia. Art can also be a collective experience. Indeed, as the lead singer
of The Scotch Bonnets said, Artscape offers a type of cleansing, a
decontamination of bad isms: ageism, racism, sexism. I also two more—antagonism
and negativism.
Not all isms are bad though. Artscape is the
quintessential prism of optimism and the potential that humanity shows when we
embrace creativity and multiculturalism.
Life beats down and crushes the soul and art reminds you that you have one.” ~Stella Adler
My
gift today is decontamination.
