Effects

Had an interesting conversation with a niece the other night—we were at an art opening of her fathers. Eight pieces, women mostly, some dancing, some sitting, some more abstract. It bounced around some, but really boiled down to this: Children don’t want anything to happen in their parents life that brings them pain, and parents don’t want anything to happen in their child’s life that will bring them pain. We all cower at the kind of pain that is hard and visceral; the kind that leaves scars in the back of the mind long after the image fades—the kind that requires exorcisms by therapy, drugs, escapism or art.

It made me wonder if art isn’t the imitation of life, but the effect of living.

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