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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
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