On Monday I went with a good friend on a lovely adventure to the BYU Museum of Art and the BYU Bookstore. Art Museums (Most any kind of museum) and bookstores---pieces of heaven on earth for me. I find both art museums and bookstores soothing and stimulating at the same time. Let me try and explain...
I love art museums because the works you find in them try to answer questions and end up asking even more. Artists try to give voice to what they see through their eyes. I think it is interesting that every art form is a cooperation of our spirits and elements of earth. Painters paint what they see in their mind's eye with paints taken from the earth. Sculptors sculpt with earth itself. Dancers (I think dancing is a pure and exciting form of art because in dancing our spirits really can move our bodies) create movement executed on the ground beneath their feet. For me, art is very spirtual because of this bringing together the physical and the spiritual to create something exhilartingly thought provoking.
My husband says he thinks we all helped create the Earth and everything in it. I like that idea. It would explain why some people feel connected to the mountains or others to the ocean or why some people like trees and others feel drawn to animals. Maybe we can really stretch things here and think that we not only helped create landscapes and creatures but sounds---like maybe someone musical created the sound of water trickling over rocks...It could be lots of fun to look at people you know and imagine what on the earth they would have helped create or form. I believe each of us is creative because we are children of the Creator--Heavenly Father--our Father. Some of us feel a greater need to create than others but we all feel it. It is part of us. Every now and then I hear someone say that they are not at all creative. That is not a true statement. Some people might not paint or sculpt or dance but they create beautiful or peaceful environments. Others create order out of disorder. There are many ways to create and in which to be creative. Art museums soothe my soul in speaking to my spirit in a language that I seem to remember and they stimulate me by awakening an awareness in my spirit brain and a desire in my spirit heart. I also like them because of the nice little signs that accompany each piece and give a brief background or explanation. Sometimes I wish more things in life and events in life had those nice little summations but that would probably make things too easy and inhibit my ability to form my own perceptions and understanding. Does that make sense?
The special exhibit we enjoyed was called Mirror Mirror:Contemporary Portraits and the Fugitive Self. (How could I not be curious about a title like that?) The exhibit showed the influence of technological media on the traditional art form of portraiture---in other words they were trying to visually represent the true self incorporating various kinds of modern media.One of my favorite pieces in the special exhibit was in a room where projected on three walls was video of people coming and going at a busy intersection in New York City. I am an avid people watcher so I found it fascinating and satisfying to sit and watch the people without the worry of being caught. With the larger than life projections and the background sounds you felt as if you were there. Suddenly faces in the crowd became more than that. Some of the faces wore such emotion. The faces drew you in like covers of books and you found yourself wanting to know the stories that went with the faces. My friend and I sat there and watched for several minutes. While we sat there she told me of an harrowing experience she had getting lost in New York City. Her story was made even more real by the pictures of people coming and going. (I wonder if there was a hidden camera filming our reactions to the people being filmed? Hmmm...)
Another favorite piece was a large tree sculpture that was covered in a black velvet fabric and had clear glass or plastic birds perched on the branches. The birds were filled with Windex. Fascinating... Another piece was a video of two people dancing. The artist had posted an ad for people to be in a dance video. Two people who showed up were very different--so different that they were chosen to be in the video. One was a tall, thin young man and one was a shorter kind of plump middle-aged woman. They danced together. Sometimes they looked almost absurd but they danced together in spite of their obvious differences on several levels. It was stirring in an odd sort of way. There were several pieces by one artist that I was looking at number 3 of 4 before I realized that they were paintings and not photographs! So much fun...I could go on and on...wait, I already have.
After the museum we fed our bodies which were lagging behind our full and invigorated minds at the time and then we headed to the bookstore. My favorite bookstore is Sam Weller's in Salt Lake City because it has creaking floors and smells of old books and there is a basement with wonderful used books that have things written inside like 'Merry Christmas Bob' or something that makes you a feel like a part of the previous book owner's life. But...BYU Bookstore is fun because they have all kinds of church books, a real candy department, and a children's book section that I could wander in for quite some time... Bookstores invite me in and make me want to make myself at home. They also excite me because I can take a book in my hands and for a moment have an out of body experience in traveling to a different time period or a different country, or a different time of life.
We finished our adventure by taking a drive down memory lane for my friend who graduated from BYU and lived near campus while attending. I really enjoy driving people down memory lane...a Memory Lane Chauffer would be a good job to apply for----
I think I made it perfectly clear how much I enjoyed this outing. I enjoyed it so much that this week seemed to not start with a Monday. Just yesterday while I was scrubbing my floor I saw a work of art outside of my kitchen window. It was a landscape of a tree made soft with baby leaves silouhetted against billowy white clouds gathering to cover a patch of blue sky. The perspective was one of looking upward. What works of art have you seen lately?
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