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Art is In the Ear of the Beholder
As far as I can tell, visual art is not my gift. As a child I worked in many mediums– pencil and paper, paint, chalk, clay, foam and even paper mache but to the best of my memory nothing I ever created really caught anyone’s attention, much less inspired them. I did bring home a clay ash tray from camp one time that sits on an end table in my parents living room, but I suspect that has more to do with the inscription on the bottom “Sturt – Cabin 3b” (Yes, I spelled my name wrong) than for any artistic flair.
One can usually pick out the artsy people in the room simply by the way they dress and / or carry themselves. Most visual artist just exude creativity – they simply can’t help it. They seem to “hear” a certain music playing that others don’t – or at least some of the common notes in a different way. They also tend to be more liberal in their politics which should maybe tell us something. (Though I’m not sure what.) Maybe it’s living one’s life around the mantra to “be more creative” that drives them to so often seek change. I tend to drift more toward the conservative side of things. Maybe that’s why I can’t so much as paint a stick man without getting something out of proportion. And why I am more inclined to “work with what I’ve got,” than strike out radically from scratch.
Oh well, it takes all kinds.
The new Art Museum of Southwest Virginia sure supports that idea. I know of no one who is lukewarm on the thing. You either love it or you’d like to see it melted back into so much silica, while the $66 million dollars gets plowed back into any number of worthy community projects . . . Like maybe schoolbooks and teacher’s salary for instance. Oops, sorry – there goes an opinion!
But alas, Roanoke City is “only” pony-ing up $6 million of the total. The large majority of the balance is coming from a few big givers who have their own particular vision for the thing. I think I was half on board with them (after all, it is their money) until they jettisoned the IMAX theatre part of the plans. Maybe it’s just me, but without a more modern and dare I say blue-collar draw, I don’t see the $66 Million of twisting glass and steel accomplishing much in the way of bang for the buck.
The buying public that will determine the Museums success over the next 50 years is not the same as the one in place over the last 50, and my guess is that large expensive art museums in out of the way places (relative to large urban areas) will not exactly be on the cutting edge of city promotion / development. And if they’re draining resources that would otherwise be available for other creative economic development / recreation efforts as well as desperately needed social service agencies, then all the worse.
But just as with visual art itself, we all see things differently and sometimes we just have to trust the instincts of those who claim to know. In the case of the art museum it is largely private money and its influence moving elected city officials towards a future that the rest of us don’t have a great deal of choice in. And while the record in such efforts isn’t exactly stellar in these parts, who knows, lightening may strike. Maybe they “hear” something many of us don’t.
I hope it’s a good tune.
- Stuart