By Catherine Lang-Cline
Think about how we feel:
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At a live concert
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It’s lyric writing, music writing, costumes, and lighting.
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In an art museum
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It’s painting, sculpture, crafts, furniture, and more.
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At a sporting event
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It’s band music, choreography, music to make you cheer.
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At a theater performance
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It’s lighting, costumes, music, choreography, and song lyrics.
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Even watching streaming content
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It’s acting, writing, costumes, cinematography, special effects, and on and on.
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It’s all art.
The art world has taken a beating over the past year with theaters and museums being closed as well as all event spaces. It has given us all a moment to realize how much art affects us and what it is like not to have it. It affects our emotions and our mood, it helps us see things differently, and it deserves to be celebrated. So while we are working ourselves out of this pandemic, how can we celebrate World Art Day?
You can keep right on streaming. There is so much great content available and I was completely unaware of a lot of it because of time. I have found great foreign films, diverse films, things that I might not have taken a chance on and it ended up as a real gift. You can also keep reading because there are a lot of great authors and poets that you may not have had a chance to appreciate without this pause in time. Some of the world’s art at its finest.
And now that the weather is finally getting better, vaccines are being distributed, and the numbers are starting to go down, so we can move about, especially in the outdoors and in the fresh air. Here are some ways that you can celebrate and feed your soul with art:
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Go to a park. In a nod to all of the people that plan and design parks, take advantage of their talents and enjoy the trees, topiaries, and trails that have been built for your enjoyment.
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See some outside sculptures. Art is all around us in the form of statues, fountains, sculptures, and architecture. Lookup a map or guide online for a specific area you wish to visit and see what art they have around town.
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Set up a time to visit an art museum. Most art museums are welcoming masked visitors with a scheduled time to control capacity. Follow the rules and your visit should be completely safe.
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Drive-ins or your own outdoor movie setup is an opportunity to invite friends and family to a movie experience that can still be safe. You can also download performances from your town or around the world to share.
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Go outside and garden, paint, build, read or write your own poetry. Basically, create art. Be inspired by nature, and simply walk in it. Get dirty!
Very soon we will be able to recapture all that we have missed, but don’t give up on it entirely; we need art. We need art to be there when we are all back to enjoy it fully and one way to do that is to consider contributing to the art group of your choice. It could be directed to an organization or to a larger group that can help many organizations, even to a single artist. Any amount will help.
Let’s go get inspired. Let’s celebrate World Art Day.
