THE ART OF SURVIVING HARD TIMES
There are two simple pleasures in life that seem immune to hard times: napping and reading a book. I am often able to combine the two during a short visit I make to the local library while on my lunch break. I find a book in the recent acquisitions section, settle into one of the chairs in the circular lobby area, and read, perchance to snooze — at least until the alarm on my cell phone tells me I need to go back to work.
Most of the time but not always, I pick something that I suspect will soon render me drowsy. Every once in a while a book will surprise me and instead of snoozing I will find myself caught up in a graphic novel or a coffee table book on ancient holy cities or a history of trains used by the British royalty or whatever else happens to be handy that day.
This happened last week with a book with the distinctly unexciting title of "500 Handmade Books." Surely, I thought to myself, this will have me nodding off in no time. Well, I opened the book to a random page and found myself stunned at the image in front of me: an exquisite creation by Carol Barton called Alphabetica Synthetica. I was hooked. After 10 minutes of intense visual pleasure, I checked the book out to bring home with me.
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What was it about the book that was so engaging? Two things. First, the time and the effort and the skills needed to produce these books were evident in every aspect of each book, from binding to cover to paper. Second, the artistic vision behind each book was sufficiently distinctive to produce 500 completely unique works that extended the notion of what a book was beyond anything I could ever have imagined.
The combination of artistry and artisanship just blew me away. It reminded me of the power of art to enable one to perceive the possibilities that lie hidden in the commonplace, just waiting for someone to come along and liberate them. Equally important, I was freed from the tidal wave of bad news that seems to be the curse of the interesting times in which we live. I was able to leave my troubles behind and lose myself in a world I could never have found by myself.
The next time you hear some politician complaining about spending money on art during hard times, remind yourself that a thousand years from now, our humanity will be measured by our art. Indeed, in troubled times art is not a luxury. It is a necessity.
March 2009
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