Save Art Now III: Why It's Important (Part I)

I remember when I started hating art. It was summer vacation of 1997, when I would have been about 13 and we were cruising through the southwest with my mother and my uncle, visiting Santa Fe, New Mexico. It was an incredible vacation overall, but my Uncle was in the market for a piece of art- and that ended up spelling trouble for us kids. You see, Santa Fe has a stretch of street that I think the guide book referred to as 'the Magnificent Mile' a mile of art galleries on either side of the street. And, much to the horror of my siblings and I, my mother and my uncle proceeded to drag us all through pretty much every single one of them.

I don't want to judge the place now, but then, my 13 year old self was far from impressed (as so few 13 year olds are) as most of the art seemed to be the same old take on a Southwestern desert landscape with maybe a cowboy or a Native American in the picture somewhere. To me, at the time, it seemed like art one would find in a motel.

My siblings and I naturally went on strike after about gallery #10, but my mother and my uncle, undeterred, continued on. And on. And on. And I just got sick and tired of looking at art.

That was a shame- because after Santa Fe, we went on to Taos, NM, where there's a lot of impressive art and I just couldn't summon up enough energy to care. I had overdosed- and I've regretted not having a little bit more awareness of what I was seeing and hope someday to revisit both Santa Fe and Taos to see what it's really like.

But that vacation turned me off to the whole concept of art in a major way. Art was just something you hang on a wall, boring colors molded into people and random shapes. Some of it just looked like someone had thrown a punch of paint at the wall or finger painted even. I didn't get it. I didn't want to get it. I had not a lick of artistic ability in me. I was the kid who would fear the wrath of Mr. Reed and his massively taped up hockey stick in elementary school art class, because I couldn't remember the difference between primary and complimentary colors. (Mr. Reed would stride around like a Field Marshal, slapping that hockey stick into the palm of his hand until suddenly, he would turn, pounce and SMACK the stick down onto our table- scaring us all into quiet submission and usually scaring up the right answer as well. It was a very effective teaching technique.)

So it's with some surprise that I find reporters calling me to ask questions about why I'm starting a Facebook group to save the Jackson Pollock. Well, I guess in the end, my road to art appreciation began with a dilemma that happened early on my Freshman year at the U of I. I had, finally, after some scraping, got a job interview down at Public Safety- the afternoon in question, I was planning on heading over to DPS right after my Rhetoric class, but ran into a problem: it was raining. Not just little sprinkles, but full on tropical monsoon type of rain. And amongst the many things I hadn't acquired yet since I moved into the dorms was an umbrella.

Do I wait for the rain to stop and be late to the interview or do I just make a run for it and hope the best? After some thought, I decided (wisely as it turned out) that punctuality was more important to employers than whether or not I was dry. I decided to make a run for it- and realized about 3 steps out of the door that staying dry just wasn't going to happen. I squelched through the Main Library, and back out into the monsoon, kicking off my sandals as I did so. At the corner of Burlington and Madison a couple of girls ran by me and yelled 'You're CRAZY!' I had to agree with them. Wet had transcended into some state beyond wet. Beyond even soaked, I think. So I arrived at DPS, soaking wet, dripping everywhere and was ushered into their conference room and after about a minute long interview, Lt. Tom Johnson (who in charge of hiring at the time) gave me a job. I'd like to think it was because I earned it somehow or maybe just showed up- but probably it was just so I'd stop dripping water all over the place and go away.

A couple of weeks later, I started work as a Security Guard down at the Museum of Art.