The Arts

Every now and then, when you're on stage, you hear the best sound a player can hear. It's a sound you can't get in movies or in television. It is the sound of a wonderful, deep silence that means you've hit them where they live. -Winters

I went to Wicked the musical today. If anyone has been to it before they know that the stage, the costumes, the music, the plot is amazing. It is transfixing! Incredible! Amazing! As I was sitting in the dark auditorium and the audience was hushing, I was struck by the thought that the arts have the ability to transform thoughts, ideas, and feelings. It seems that paintings, sculptures, photographs, plays, musicals, songs, and other manifestations of creativity can take people out of their humdrum lives, away from the stresses of the day-to-day, and into a world where the limits are only set by what can be imagined. The beauty of humanity is that people empathize with others through arts.

Music takes us out of the actual and whispers to us dim secrets that startle our wonder as to who we are, and for what, whence, and whereto. –Emerson

I am transfixed by the thought that emotion that can be captured in a photograph, drawing, or song. To be able to touch the heart of others who are unknown to you and come from a different context is a humbling power. The power of the arts is in its ability to make people embrace humanity.

Once the mind has been stretched by a new idea, it will never again return to its original size. -Holmes

One of the most wonderful and terrible things about creative arts is that often the most thought provoking and remembered are the things that make us disquieted, uncomfortable, unsure. By providing cognitive dissonance, art forces us to re-examine beliefs we hold true and ideas we were once sure of. Once we confront these emotions and assimilate the new perceptions and perspectives into our frames of context then our world becomes a little bigger, a little more tolerant, a little more forgiving, a little more passionate. The world could use a little more of all of these things so embrace the arts, the artist in you, the art around you no matter if it is a masterpiece or a crayon drawing taped to the fridge.