Why we need art, now!

There are times when we need art to lift our spirits, to make us laugh, to give us a vision of a better world. There are days when we need to feel a connection to people around us, people in our past, and people in our future. Days when we demand beauty in our lives. Now, during the physically isolated homestays required by the spread of Covid-19, these are all reasons to have art in our lives.

Here are three examples that demonstrate the power of art to connect, heal, and inspire.

The Chinese vase

There is a Chinese vase in my husband’s childhood home. It is large, bold, and colorful. Whether it’s really from China is not clear, but we know that it has been in my mother-in-law’s family for a long time. That’s because she never tires of telling her grandchildren how it stood in the front hall in her grandmother’s house.

As the story goes, when my mother-in-law was a child, she and her cousins would run through her grandmother’s large house playing games. As they galloped through doorways and careened around corners, her grandmother would call, “watch out for the vase.” The story always comes up at family gatherings when the house is filled with grandchildren. I wonder if these present-day cousins can picture their grandmother as a child.

That’s one of the magical powers of art objects. They can connect you to people in your past, present, and future. The Chinese vase creates a connection across five generations, with my mother-in-law playing the pivotal role of grandmother today and grandchild years ago.

The red painting

Above the fireplace in my living room hangs an oil painting my husband and I bought in a local art gallery. It is an abstract color field painting in reds of many shades: bright orange-red, buzzing pink raspberry, deep red tinged with purple and black.

I never tire of staring at this painting by Dagmar Nickerson, my eyes moving from active bright red areas to the darker pensive ones, emerging from hopeful pinker sections to cycle back through the bright center again. It’s an example of the power of art to play with your emotions, to comfort, soothe, stimulate, enliven.

Hanging above the mantle, the red painting joins my sculpture Jerusalem Stone and art objects from my parents’ house. It’s like a family gathering, across time.

The garden onion

I knit the Garden Gem: Onion one fall when the farmers’ market was bursting with abundance. I wanted to capture some of the beauty of the vegetable garden. The onion is like a precious jewel. Its translucent golden skin glows like treasure. Its shape resembles a large exquisite gemstone.

How amazing to see this pearl emerge from the earth, caked in dirt. In spring, the leaves poke through the ground with promise and optimism. As we watch the leaves reach for the sun, we anticipate the harvest. When it’s ready, the onion will season our food.

So too, art seasons our lives. It lifts our spirits and makes us hopeful. Art inspires us to bring goodness into the world.