Why live with art?
LeConte Stewart, The Old Homestead, 1923. My mom collects this noted Utah artist’s work.
I grew up surrounded by art.
My parents collected paintings, sculpture, photography, and artifacts that told the story of the Rocky Mountain West, the home ground for generations of their families. Cowboys on horseback in bitter winds. Vibrant woven blankets by indigenous makers. Bucolic scenes of harvest time. Evocative landscapes with lone farmhouses.
Additionally, my mom made beautiful pottery that we ate on, cooked in, and filled with flowers. Art embraced our physical space; art delivered our food to us on the table. It’s not too far a stretch to say art was our shelter and our sustenance.
My family lived with art as seamlessly as anyone lives with their given surroundings. So much so that when I envisioned this blog and asked myself how I learned how to live well with art, the answer surprised me. Oh, I realized, it was there all along. Images and textures, shelves of literature surrounded me as I grew from child to woman. How did they affect me? A strange sensation to discover that I’ve overlooked a formative environment all these years. But wonderful, too, at 52, to find a new framework for understanding myself and my values.
The kind of art I grew up with, artist unknown.
Being surrounded by art doesn’t turn you into something you’re not. I did not grow up to be a cowboy. Western landscapes make me feel lonesome. I like clean lines, bold colors, abstraction, contemporary themes. I prefer Mediterranean climates and lush flowering vines.
The kind of art I love now. Jordan Ann Craig, Berry Baby, acrylic on canvas.
Instead, art offers a pathway to nuanced intelligence. Art stimulates conceptual relationships in our minds. Because our brains are constantly searching for order, art can mirror this process and better equip us for solving problems and acquiring knowledge.
But perhaps art’s more direct and meaningful roles are how it makes us feel and the stories it can tell. Surrounded as I was by regional art that showed the beauty and harshness of a landscape and the fortitude and joy of humans in that landscape, I think it must have played a part in informing my strong sense of individual self and my desire to adventure in the world. I also tend to be gob smacked by natural beauty and in awe of wildlife. I learned, quietly, passively, to look into nature, to see it as a place outside of myself, whole in its own right and unconcerned with human life. This informed one of my deepest values: to be humble in my participation in the world.
I say “passively” because I didn’t have to try hard to see these things. The paintings and sculptures in our home were like the storybook pages of my childhood. Generally, I advocate for engagement with art. But I’m also interested in how it charges the air we move in even without active engagement.
I invite you to reflect on art in your childhood home? Even a poster of a painting might have captured your imagination. What lessons or values or stories did it contain? Have any of those themes extended into your adulthood?