July 5, 2009

I remember my earliest art experiences. My father was someone who'd bring home an antique when there was no milk in the refrigerator, and he'd seen to it that I had books with prints of paintings by the time I was four or five. But in the second grade, some sort of travelling collection made it to our elementary school, and all the kids went to see it in the auditorium, class by class.

The lighting was terribly dim, so the room was too dark, and we were just marched by with no time to stop and ponder. But I thought it was the most magical experience possible: Huge, life-sized reproductions of famous paintings--Pinky and Blue Boy were two of them, I remember--rose before us in splendor. I didn't behold them, they beheld me. Life would never be the same.

Despite the explosion in technology, children--human beings--have not evolved from such early dawnings of discovery. Seemingly simple encounters still have powerful results. There is a passage in scripture that warns us about entertaining angels unaware, and I know that something was riding my shoulder that day.

PW