LWC: Arts and Religion Day

On Friday, April 12th, I attended Leadership Washington County's Arts and Religion Day and it was by far my favorite of all the LWC class days.

The thesis for the day was, "What opportunities are there for active participation in the arts in Washington County, MD?"

The short answer is: where aren't there opportunities for active participation in the arts?

No, it's not for sale ... unless you want to buy it.

We started our day at the Washington County Museum of Fine Arts where we split into small groups to go experience different artsy activities. My first stop was at the Mansion House (home to the Valley Arts Association) where we learned about the local artists' exhibits that are on display and how inexpensive it is for local artists to display their works of art there. Then we got to do what ended up being my favorite part of the whole day: we learned how to paint with watercolors. I enjoyed it so much that I kept worrying that we were going to be told at any minute that we need to leave and go to the next part of our day!

The artist who taught us is a professional watercolor painter and has created some astounding pieces for which I now have a much, much greater respect and appreciation for because I had a hard enough time painting the tulip you see above.

After we painted, we went back to the museum and enjoyed a fascinating, albeit brief, tour of the collections given by a Master Docent. Much like with the watercolors, I found myself not wanting the time to end. There was so much to see and learn. One bit of information I picked up is how to appreciate a quality portrait. As it turns out, it's all in the eyes. I don't mean the "beauty is in the eye of the beholder," but rather a good portrait is measured by the quality of the painting of the eyes. Are they realistic - both up close and at a distance? A skilled portrait artist can paint extremely realistic eyes that are lifelike no matter where you stand to appreciate the work; if glasses are in front of the individual's eyes, that's even further evidence of an artist who is particularly gifted in this type of painting.

Image courtesy of rockwellpaintings.org

The last little bit of our time at the museum was spent in their vault learning about their preservation and collection development efforts. The museum has roughly 7,000 pieces but only 10% are on display at any given time. When they aren't on display, the pieces are hung neatly in sliding metal cage-like slats, arranged solely by size. We got to hear stories about how the museum came by its one Norman Rockwell piece. A bastardized version of the story is pretty much the director of the museum at that time wrote a letter asking for it and Mr. Rockwell said, "Ok, give me a thousand bucks for it and it's yours."

Moral of the story is: ask and ye shall receive...if ye has the money.

Ok, so I'm being more than a bit flippant but it is amazing how much of the collection has been received simply through donation, and through folks and especially European institutions, selling pieces cheaply (especially after WWII) and wanting them to be in a safe place. I am looking forward to going to back to the museum and spending more time there.

During lunch we were treated to a few performances by local poets and musicians, two of whom are the stars in the upcoming Barbara Ingram School For the Arts' musical, Legally Blonde.

After that, the LWC class 26 was taught, by BISFA students and faculty, how to sing and dance to the Bend and Snap piece of the musical, which we rehearsed over and over again so we could actually perform it with the students during their afternoon rehearsal. I hear there is a video of us somewhere...

In the end, I found this day to be quite personally serendipitous because I had just that morning started to read Seth Godin's The Icarus Deception. One of the very first lines in the book is, "We are all artists now."

I consider myself an artist - both in the traditional and non-traditional sense - I write haiku, I melt bottle caps into other forms that I'm not quite sure what will happen with them but I'm convinced something artistic will become of them. But I think I'm most pleased with my non-traditional art - the way I am able to facilitate groups and use my words to craft emotionally intelligent and visually stimulating emails, articles, and Facebook posts (that actually move people to take my surveys, participate fully in brainstorming sessions, and buy 50 Get-A-Way raffle tickets).

This actually got me thinking about our previous LWC days and how I wish we could do it all over again - knowing what we now know - and incorporate a little bit of each of the days into each other. For example, for the Cultural Heritage day that's coming up in May, I wish we could focus on cultural heritage but examine it through the lenses of human services AND education AND literacy AND local gov't AND business and economics AND arts and religion, etc. Do you get the idea?

Hmm, wait a minute, aren't I a part of the cultural heritage group?