Discovering Art at the Arts Festival
It was the summer of 1976 and I found myself at the Arts Festival. I was 14 years old, clad in cutoff shorts, an Alice Cooper ringer t-shirt and Converse All Stars, with a corona of unkempt hair that looked like it was combed with an eggbeater.
I’m not entirely sure why my family was at the Festival, my parents were not art patrons, in fact I doubt if they had ever been in any art museum, but I remember very clearly being mesmerized by the wall of artwork that majestically lined Genesee Street.
Walking through the Sidewalk Art Show was an awakening. Maybe it was because this art was created by “regular” people and not “artists” led me to believe that anyone could create, even me. I remember one piece particularly, a painting of an artist holding a brush in his fist projecting out towards the viewer, appearing almost like a “power salute” that I had seen photos of demonstrators flash out in protest. This piece stuck with me, and made me realize that art, in all its forms, is an expression of emotion and attitude and was more than just “nice pictures.”
After that summer, I looked at art differently, and now, so many years later, I am still mesmerized by the works in the Sidewalk Art Show and as I watch the crowds of people gather around the wall of creativity I can only wonder if, and hope that, some of them are touched in the same way I was 35 years ago.
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