creative forces

 

Blog # 142…June 2023

 

I was so thrilled to hear of CBC’s Connie Walker’s double hitter for her piece STOLEN, about her father’s time in a Saskatchewan residential school – both the Pulitzer and the Peabody prizes…recognition abroad! 

We used to think of art and beauty as, if not exactly the same, then closely related. I know many artists’ work reflected their struggles with poverty and mental illness, but that wasn’t usually what was valued and shown. Time has changed many things and art now doesn’t just aim to please, but to call our attention to injustice, to make a political point, to disturb the status quo or to express anger. Beauty is often not easy to recognize, not what we’re used to, not easy beauty. 

Easy Beauty…the title that philosophy professor/journalist Chloe Cooper Jones has given to a tale of her existence as a woman who’s lived her entire life with a severely disfiguring, painful and disabling condition. Prompted by listening to a discussion held by two colleagues/friends about whether her life is worth living, (Yikes! What kind of friends are those?) Chloe began considering her own life and, as a philosopher, the worth of life itself. 

Although she had responsibilities, a husband and young son and an academic position, she travelled to Rome to think and to write. She discovered amidst her own physical pain and the art she encountered, calm appreciation, deep beauty and a sense of belonging. A sculpture by Bernini depicting figures from mythology particularly touched her. Her skills as a journalist (of travel and sports, especially tennis, especially Rafael Nadal) enable her to weave philosophical theories of beauty into her story so painlessly we hardly notice. And, although it only took you seconds to read about it,  her journey is long and sometimes painful, but also rich and human.                                               

Looking at art ourselves, we can appreciate both the delicacy of Sisley's Fog at Voisins...

 

And we’ve learned to value the messages contained in the harsh hues of toxic waste  in  Ed Burtynsky’s photos.

 

Getting back to Chloe and her body that looks different from most...there are many versions of bodies. some altered for function:

And then there are these:

Canadian writer Jeannie Marshall discovered some lessons on how to live by spending time looking closely at the figures in the Sistine Chapel. She felt part of something much bigger than what she could see, yet also alone.  Although it’s over 500 years since Michaelangelo painted scenes from the Old Testament across the ceiling of the Chapel, the themes of senseless violence and anger in the world, the anguish and suffering of many people persists. She wrote All Things Move to explore her discovery of ways of looking at art and thinking about what she saw. 

But you don’t have to go to Rome to find beauty - easy or more difficult, and it doesn’t have to be in a gallery either.  Just look around you right now...or look in the mirror.

I soak up ideas from many places and people as I move around and I have my friend Michelle to thank for sending me down this particular avenue. She mentioned Easy Beauty to me at lunch one day recently, then found a copy in a little library on her way home and put it in the mail to me. It connected a few dots in my mind about what we value and why. Then, when I was part way through writing this and struggling a bit with a focus, my cousin Susan brought me All Things Move and it  gave me what I needed to start to order my thoughts, although you may find them a bit scattered, it's a complicated topic. Thanks to both of them and to many of you who contribute to my view of life and our place in it.

July will be here before we know it, be back then.