Growth Spurt
Evolve your life through art.

One snowy morning in February, I was desperate to get out of the house and have an adventure of some sort. I had been housebound for days, and I was deeply concerned that the highlight of my day, after I melted more cheese on some nachos, was going to be Joe Millionaire. I had become as stale as the chips in my cupboard

So I called some of my fellow downtown resident friends to meet me at First Watch for breakfast, among them Charles Desmarais, director of the Contemporary Arts Center. After my melted-cheese-on-eggs-and-potatoes breakfast, he took me on a hard-hat tour of Zaha Hadid’s new Lois and Richard Rosenthal Center for Contemporary Art.

I was blown away. From the outside, the building juts and struts, imposing itself like an architectural Mick Jagger. But the interior of the building is truly remarkable, a space that simply redefines space. From the trippy, Escher-esque stairs at the entrance to the weird, Being John Malkovich low-ceilinged gallery that transforms as soon as you enter its voluminous space, from the half-pipe walls to the soaring, sky-lit ceiling, it is literally invigorating. There amid the scaffolding and the construction detritus and the dust, I felt the energy of the building. I felt I was bearing witness to the power of art, an anthropologist of sheer potential.

I first discovered how powerful art can be 10 years ago when I took a job at the CAC and then later when I worked with museums around the country producing traveling art exhibitions. I vividly remember the thrill of watching the Starn twins’ work emerge from crates, watching artists from TODT build their apocalyptic tower in the middle of the night, walking down the street with the writer Toni Morrison, hearing artist Betye Saar kindly describing the discarded trash in the backseat of my car as my own "assemblage."

As the world evolves, warts and all, so must art. And the best artists do more than document change. They find a way to communicate to us about potential—the potential for the human spirit to fear, to think, to create, to love, to soar.

When I get stale and I need a little push, a reminder to reach beyond my own boundaries, I am always rewarded when I seek something of great beauty, whether in architecture, film, music or the visual arts. When I get stuck as a writer, I listen to good music. When I get stuck in some rotten mood, I pick up a good novel. And when I need to see the world differently, I look at art. So get out there and open your eyes. Push you own boundaries. Soar.

Or you can melt cheese on a stale bed of nacho chips and watch Joe Millionaire reruns. Your choice.

Stacy Sims