Yesterday, at the Art Institute of Chicago, my roommate Robin explained to me the interweaving of time periods, influential predecessors, colors, textures, shapes, perspectives, emotions, light, and techniques involved in Van Gogh's haystack paintings. Later in the evening, I expressed a sentiment that I've frequently felt while perusing art galleries... sure, it's impressive and well-done, but couldn't someone else have painted water lilies that look just like Monet's? My wise roommate rejected this notion and, instead, articulated a vision of art as a visual representation of a thought process. People express themselves through a plethora of avenues. As a verbose extrovert, I often express myself or sort through lingering thoughts via talking with people. However, playing piano and singing express my thoughts and emotions in ways that talking never could. My ceramics pieces from last summer will probably never be displayed in a museum (nor should they be), but the process of creating and expressing was nonetheless worthwhile.
I could launch into a discussion about executing a task with excellence (highly valued in Western culture) versus embracing the messiness of learning, but I won't.
Instead, I'll share the video that prompted these thoughts in the first place. Almost two years ago, I spent a semester living in Chicago while enrolled in Wheaton College's Urban Studies program. During "Wheaton in Chicago," I interned with a social service called Children's Home & Aid and taught an after-school science club for 3rd-5th graders at a public school on the South Side of Chicago, in a neighborhood called Englewood. Although I was woefully unprepared for preparing interesting science experiments and corralling 25 kids who had already spent the entire day sitting in school without recess and had a wide variety of academic abilities (some third graders could hardly read while some fifth graders could have taught the science club better than me), I grew to love these kids.
Thus, when my friend showed me a video that some of my former students and their classmates created, I couldn't help but feel proud. Proud of my students expressing themselves through music.
Not only does art express the artist's emotion, but it also evokes emotion in the viewer. Watching this video, I felt proud of the artists, yet also knew the weightiness of feeling abandoned and looked down upon by society at large and the pressure to "make it."
*This telling of the Prodigal Son featured an ant community, as well as other insects (the worm was my favorite!), with many ridiculous ant puns throughout the show.
