We have a small collection of wonderful artwork that has been collected over a period of 40 years. There is a wonderful photo by Deborah DeWitt Marchant, who we met at the Bellevue Art Fair a dozen years or so ago, and various large photographs of France, the Rock of Gibralter, and various Southwest scenes. One of my favorite small photos is of bread fresh from the oven, cooling on a sideboard in South Carolina. All of these pieces have been picked up at art fairs, galleries, and small studios, and we have met all of the artists.
We recently inherited a large 18x24 inch serigraph by Elton Bennett, a famous artist from Hoquiam, Washington. It's called "The Sea Birds Cry", and it is a scene from the Washington Coast, Bennett's only subject. In his short career as an artist, he created thousands of pieces, with a goal to never charge more than $15 per piece, enabling the common man to own original art.
This scene of the beach has been in the family for over 40 years, and it's incredible to experience the colors and recognize familiar sights so common on the coast.
The art that one lives with brightens the home. Each piece appeals to the senses and the imagination, gives pleasure, broadens ones knowledge of other minds, and manifests a vision of the spirit of a certain age (in this case, the 60's).
Without art, without music, without awareness of others, of differences, one is not quite fully alive. Living with art is a part of that full use of one's mental and physical capacities that makes life, and that can also be called happiness.
From time to time your blog finds you on the beach – either in fact or in the imagination when you speak of a painting in your family for 40 years and how “it's incredible to experience the colors and recognize familiar sights so common on the coast.”
ReplyDeleteYou seem drawn to the ocean – its openness, its vastness, its infinite possibilities, its sense of impending liberation from everything and anything that holds us back.
Perhaps this is where music lives – or any other form of art that comes from a place without perceptible boundaries. No one can see the other side of an ocean, no words can encompass the sounds and sights that touch us at the deepest part of our hearts.
Do you sense this when you stand on a beach, looking out… listening?
larus