A good piece of 'art' (and by that I mean anything in the arts - poetry, drama, dance, visual art...) draws us in, it makes us drop our defences and then it sucker punches us with some golden nugget of truth.
Also good art encounters people in different ways depending on where they are at and what they are ready for. Two people can go to the same film, read the same book, see the same photograph and it will speak to them in different ways about different things.
Art connects us to one another - it builds invisible bridges where we experience solidarity of experience, hope, validation.
Art is important in the world.
The makers of art give something of themselves in everything they produce - they struggle to reflect both beauty and despair, hopefulness and disappointment.
When school finished last week Bounce brought home a family portrait. In the family portrait one character is a different colour, they are bigger, they are the feature. That character? is his brother. One of Bounce's first words when he was very small was 'my brother'. Before he called Flip by his real name he called him 'my brother' for a long time, such is his love and affection for his brother and the importance of their connectedness.
As Christmas dawns on us we look towards our families and the characters that loom large in the family portrait of our minds may be villains or heroes..... maybe this Christmas it's time to re-callibrate the villains and re-celebrate the heroes.
This Christmas I remember that because of Christmas, because of the birth in the stable I can call Jesus my brother and I can know my lineage in a royal line is secure.
love you more than new and moving artworks for the wall xxxx
