Art is Everywhere
I’m in Charlotte, NC for < 48 hours, but had the opportunity to spend a couple of hours with a friend at the Picasso exhibit at Mint Museum Uptown. This is the only picture I took; it’s an installation on a wall of windows that spans four stories and is 3,720 square feet. It’s ‘Foragers’ by Brooklyn-based artist Summer Wheat.
As we meandered through the museum, we shared thoughts and insights about visual art, books, movies, and poetry. (And she offhandedly reminded me of the fantastic line from Mary Oliver — “Listen, are you breathing just a little, and calling it a life?” — which is something I feel like everyone should have taped over their mirror or something.) This might all sound a little all-too-serious, but I guess that’s what happens when you get an artist and writer together.
But it wasn’t just that! I mean, we talked about the Murdaugh case (of course), and we also traipsed through the fashion exhibit and decided that “people” need to start dressing up more. Starting with us, because we were both in jeans. And then I bought a can of wine at the grocery store (I did not realize that was a thing…) and rented Women Talking to watch.
I love that you can zoom in on this photo and peek through to see “real life” happening outside. Do you see the cars driving by? The row of city bikes (or whatever they’re called here)? The sign for the Harvey B. Gantt Center for African-American Arts + Culture?
Art, whether that be words or pictures or something else, is nothing if there’s no interplay with the day-to-day world around it. #artiseverywhere
{PS: Re books: I’m currently reading The Past by Tessa Hadley per a reco by @foxglovex as well as that lightning rod American Dirt. I’m going to be writing about the latter in a newsletter, which I had hoped to get out early March, but now is looking like later this week. If you’re interested in subscribing, head over to tinyurl.com/ALRsubscribe}
originally published on instagram