The Art That Calls to You
This is a guest post by Farrah Cogdell, a member of our Arts Alliance.
Art has a way of summoning us. We quietly carry the courage of our last success, the wounds of our disappointment, the preciousness of our long held desires… Our souls hold what our words may never fully convey. But every now and again someone creates a physical expression of our hidden selves – a painting's darkness that is similar to our pain or a vibrancy that reinvigorates our system and reminds us we are alive. Perhaps this is a creative grace that God instilled in us, so that we could encounter him.
So for our Night at The Met event, we gathered a special group of different kinds of artists and invited everyone to slow down, really look, and inwardly listen for pieces that “spoke” to our innerselves.
With the hopefulness of a childlike imagination, we remixed the familiar approach to walking through a gallery to gaze at art, and instead pretended that pieces themselves had the power to call out and to choose us: the beholder of their design and purpose.
The aim was to honor that internal draw embedded in each of us – the invisible core that makes us gaze and move toward a particular piece and consider its depth, its message. As we dared to lean in closer, we sought to answer the question, “Why did you call out to me?”
Could God have sewn his own heart within the skill and journey of the artist? Could he have intended to fill our souls with compassion, to demonstrate outwardly that this piece “got us”, and to breathe into our very being, a new hope?
Although we toured together, we each had a unique experience. Deeper questions followed our individual engagement: “What part of me is this piece summoning?; What kind of attention do I need to provide this part?; How does this form of beauty reflect the beauty created in me?”
Regardless of our age, social status, or belief system, art has a way of summoning the inner contexts of our lives. If we stop to listen, to really listen inside, we may discover there are parts of ourselves that have either been habitually silenced or that have neglected inspiration in exchange for survival. Could this part of us also struggle with slowing down and having enough openness or courage to pray?
The mutual experience of taking in art and having a moment to be seen through its purpose helped us to consider how God, through a lens of loving-kindness, may desire to arrest our gaze and speak to our souls.
By slowing down, being brave enough to really look, and bringing our whole selves to the moment, we stopped rushing to survive life’s demands. On this night, instead, we began to discover that God, the Original artist, has made each of us equally as beautiful as the art we behold.
