“Kindness makes you the most beautiful person in the world no matter what you look like.” ~ Unknown
soul
“I study words for their music,” poet Nikky Finney said tonight during her Bale Boone Symposium lecture. Nikky (below) was one of my professors during my undergraduate days. This was long before the awards for her work started rolling in. I took her poetry course because I wanted to understand the craft since I was simultaneously knee deep in prose a la Gurney Norman as well as music and photography. I got what I was looking for in that class and so much more. Nikky helped me truly understand poetry, and appreciate great poets, but more than that she helped me define art. It isn’t just a painting or a poem or a photo or a high priced sculpture, though they contribute to be sure. It’s life. My life is a work of art and I have lived it as such. “Art is the thing that let’s us know who we are and see other people,” she said. This wisdom on the heels of receiving the beautiful painted rock in the mail today from Mindy Cardenas, herself an artist and a maker-of-life-as-art. Her timing was pretty spectacular as usual. And what a gift to receive right after casting my ballot in this year’s critical national election. Nikky talked about that tonight, too. I don’t know an artist who isn’t talking and making art about it, frankly. “The thing that scares you?” Nikky posited. “Stay right there…Now is when we need art.” What a beautiful painting this day has been.
heart
country
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