Art Matters

I gave a speech/reading yesterday at the Jacksonville Create Festival about why art matters. Here's a partial video and full text. 

The night after we launched the #artmatters experiment, I was on the back porch at a bar, having a drink, catching up with some folks.

A friend of mine was sitting next to me, smoking a cigarette. As I turned my head she took a drag and let her hand rest on her knee just under the table.

It was a meaningless gesture. Just a movement; she just needed a place to put her hand. It was trivial.

Except at that moment, someone moved out of the way of the light shining from the bulb above the door. And it shone down across the latticed metal of the tabletop to throw a web of shadows across the back of my friend's hand.

The thing about my friend is, she doesn’t always feel confident. She doesn’t always feel capable enough or strong enough to accomplish the things she expects of herself.

But at that moment, her hand was a picture of poise,

of repose,

a cigarette dangling between two fingers,

a fishnet glove of light and shadow painted across her skin

It was an image of total control.

It was breathtaking.

I interrupted the conversation I was in, I said to the guy I was talking do, “I’m sorry – do you see that? My God, can you see that?”

He didn’t see it. I couldn’t put words to it fast enough to tell him. And then someone walked in front of the light, and my friend lifted her hand to take another drag, and it was gone.

But that ten seconds crystallized why art matters to me.

It isn’t that beauty appeared unexpectedly, although beauty is important.

It isn’t the fact that something trivial morphed into something more significant, although that’s important too.

What mattered most was that moment when I thought my chest would explode if I didn’t cry out to someone, anyone, everyone near enough to hear: “Do you see that? Do you see it? Stop. Stop whatever you’re doing and come here and Look. Look at this beautiful thing I’ve found. Come stand with me and look through my eyes and see what I see, and then tell me what you see. Come share this with me.”

That’s why art matters. It draws a line of connection between us that bypasses all the noise, all the questions and qualifications we put between ourselves and other people. It catches us off guard and invites us to grab hold of the person nearest by and say, “Hey – do you see that? Tell me what you see.”

I need that. We need that. We need to look one another in the eyes and say those things. See, art matters because you matter. We matter.

So to all of you artists, performers, dancers, musicians, writers who’ve put your work out here today: What you do matters.

And to everyone who came out today to enjoy this work, to support the arts here in Jacksonville, to expose your kids to art in all these forms – what you’re doing matters.

Thank you so much for recognizing that, and for coming out to be a part of it.