When bombs explode at the
Boston marathon, an earthquake strikes deep in Iran,
a gold mine collapses in Ghana and this planet
daily palpitates with every conceivable tragedy it seems
insanely trivial to be mentioning an art exhibition in
Cardiff but if I start to weigh things according to their
universal value then I might as well stop right here
and forever hold my peace while the animal I call Pushkin
whose owner named him Ben though his real name is simply cat sleeps
on an orange chair next to me, well, this too is trivial
compared to the incomprehensibly vast and shockingly
indifferent cosmos but there's the butterfly wing effect,
isn't there? So maybe nothing is irrelevant and it's
not too reprehensible to write insignificant blog-posts.
I arrived in Cardiff
by coach on Saturday afternoon in driving
rain, wind and cold so it was a relief to enter the cheerful
Bay Art Gallery and see a few familiar faces
among the crowd.
I was greeted by Mary
Husted, the artist and Open Books exhibition
curator and her husband Professor
Andrew Vincent who
were my kind hosts for the weekend. I was also glad to
see the poet Ivy
Alvarez, a blogging friend who lives in
Cardiff.
The sixteen artists'
accordion books were beautifully displayed on individual
shelves and tables or hanging on the wall, making it
possible for visitors to get up close to each
work. While the National
Library of Wales in Aberystwyth did a superb
job of showing these books when the exhibition first
opened there last year, the necessary glass cases do
create a distance between the audience and the work which
this more intimate setting eliminated. As usual in such
occasions I intend to take many photos but end up with
none or very few since it's more interesting to talk
to people than to record the event. The composite
photo below was taken and designed on her i-pad by Mary
Husted's talented 11 year-old grand-daughter.
The two photos below are
the only ones I managed to take and they are, egotistically,
of My
Life Unfolds. I don't know who the people talking in the
corner are but they make a great tableau of their own.
10 comments:
Sounds like it was an enjoyable event, Natalie. It's alwasy great to be able to show one's work - I just wish I could have been there.
It would have been wonderful to see you there, Marja-Leena. Maybe another time?
Good to know it all went well, Natalie. And that's a fine declaration at the beginning of your account of the event. Indeed, we do have to continue to be and to do in the face of the world's worst manifestations.
Dick, a so-called parochial view might be the only defense against being overwhelmed although the awareness that we are all interconnected can never be entirely blacked out.
Natalie, what you create is what is right in the world! I'm glad to be connected to you, your show, and your work through your blog posts. Don't apologize! I wish we could have been there.
Jonathan, that's a very heartening thought, thank you!
Yet how we feel and think about what we may choose to call trivia, affects our approach to the bigger events in life. In the grand order of things, who is to say what is the more important, the close, immanent experiences or the more transcendent ones? They're all important and interconnected.
Tom,I completely agree and thank you for reminding me. It's just that every so often, the weight of all the tragedies taking place every minute everywhere seems to threaten the lightness and joy of being.
The two people in the right hand corner of the photograph are Rosemary and Charlie Burton, both of them artists who show with the Martin Tinney Gallery in Cardiff. You ask and I answer!
Thanks for the identification, Clive. I wish I'd had a chance to talk with them but somehow time just flew by and then it was all over. I also wish you'd been there so that at last we would have met in the real world!
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