Bird Books and Other Wonders

Melissa Howden believes in the power and danger, the wonder and necessity of art.

Last week, my friend Stefanie sent me a link to the image above, entitled The Language of Birds. The image of a site-specific installation across from the famous City Lights bookstore in North Beach, San Francisco made me gasp out loud in wonder. The “birds” are books in flight. Below them on the street are phrases embedded in the walk from over 90 authors, as if their words have fallen out of the books. The piece, by artists Brian Goggin and Dorka Keen, was commissioned by the San Francisco Arts Commission.

Seeing the “bird books” ignited delight and made me thrill at the prospect of a pilgrimage to the site when next I am in the area. The fact that such a piece exists at all, and was commissioned by a public agency for the benefit of all, is also incredibly heartening.

Thanks to my mother who began taking us to live theatre at a very early age (she always got seats in the last row so that we could stand up in the seats to see and not disturb others) I grew up with an appreciation for art as something as vital and necessary as the air I breathe. Art that is successful, no matter its form, has the affect of rearranging my cells, creating a sense of expansion and challenging my beliefs. Sometimes too, a particular piece will simply just inspire wonder, causing a pause in my day. Such was the case recently while driving the back roads when I passed a house with big letters installed on the wall, which said, “A POET LIVES HERE”. There in what appeared to be the middle of nowhere, I was reassured by the existence of a resident poet in the pasture.

A while back my 10-year-old niece Emily was pondering the texture of an adobe wall, and commented that she really liked the swirls in the adobe. My brother standing next to her said that he couldn’t see the swirls she was talking about. Emily turned to him and said in the most matter of fact voice, “That’s because you aren’t an artist.” This interaction reminded me of a summer adventure with my wild and different Uncle Al, who while not a practicing artist had to my mind the soul of an artist. We were walking down the Santa Fe River and he was pointing out to me how the sun refracted off the pebbles on the bottom of the river creating magical reflections in the water. At the time I was probably a bit younger than my niece, but I count that day as my most singular lesson in consciousness.

I am right now especially filled with the promise of renewed creative vitality and consciousness not just personally but also for our culture. We have a president who during his campaign took the unprecedented move of forming an Arts Policy Committee. On his election he formed the first-ever presidential arts platform. For the first time in our history the National Endowment for the Arts was included in the recovery bill, receiving an additional 50 million dollars. Might we be on the brink of an artistic renaissance?

Art is power. Years ago while touring the Jewish ghetto in Venice, Italy, the young man giving us the tour pointed out the murals in one of the synagogues and said that Jews had not been allowed to paint the murals in their own place of worship. Only the Christians were allowed to create the art in the synagogues. This said to me in no uncertain terms that those in power recognized the absolute power of art and did not want it unleashed.

The power and danger inherent in artistic expression is its life force. Perhaps the most valuable thing about art is that thing which can’t be explained. An artist creates; we enter the space of that creation and at that intersection—that is where dialogue begins and meaning is found.

Go on an adventure! Discover the unexpected and wondrous:
on a poet’s barn wall;
in the Ailey dance Revelations;
the mud swirls of adobe;
a poem by Mary Oliver;
the space of sky in an O’Keeffe painting;
the pebbles of a river bed;
at the intersection of Columbus and Broadway Streets
and beyond.

You on an adventure Mr. Citizen
I bet you didn’t know that.
It’s all an adventure.
You signed up for it and didn’t even know it.
– Aunt Esther to Citizen Barlow in August Wilson’s play Gem of the Ocean