Living for Art
I’ve been thinking a lot about the experience of art lately. Seeing The Brutalist jogged something in my mind and had me ruminating over that measured space between artist and audience. An artist is tasked with an enormous responsibility in that their job is to channel what they feel into some mode of translation that will elicit a visceral response in their audience – perhaps that very same kinetic energy, perhaps something altogether different. But art has not really reached its potential until someone other than the creator feels it working. (There is, however, no time limit to this dynamic. Some of our most impactful art hasn’t fully bloom until years after its origin, and sometimes long after the life of its artist has come to pass.)
It's no surprise that many artists have been famously, emotionally tortured. It’s a daunting task to change the world, to make an indelible mark, to shift a person’s perspective forever – someone you will likely never meet. It requires tremendous conviction (or ego) to think it’s even possible. But it happens. It’s worked, repeatedly and miraculously. I remember the day my teacher read “Stopping By Woods on A Snowy Evening” to the class when I was in second grade and feeling that I, six years old, could fully sense the snow falling to the ground. I know exactly where I was and how I felt when I first read King Lear. (I was nineteen; it was a Sunday; I read it straight through.) I was astounded at thirty when I read To The Lighthouse for the first time and wondered how I had existed that long without having lived inside those pages. And I will never forget seeing Hamilton – which I did solely for my daughter who loved musicals so much more than I did – and being stunned that someone younger than I, someone still living, had written a play that somehow fundamentally changed me.
I have never lived intimately in the world of an artist. But Ellen and I have always believed in art. Our parents were and are entirely dedicated to inhabiting that space in which nothing exists other than the potential of art. They have always taught us that such a space is sacred and that it’s noble work to bring an audience to the art so that they, too, might, in some small way, be changed.
People ask us often what inspired us to open a store. But I’m not even sure it was inspiration per se, which suggests a revelation of sorts. It was more of a drive, a concerted effort to get back into that area in which we could commit ourselves to drawing spectators into a space that we love. We understand how hard it is to make a living in the 21st century by making art – whether that’s by way of painting or photography, or whether it’s in ceramics or glassware. Some things come from nearby studios – down the road in Warren, Boston, and Vermont – and others from as far aways as Egypt, South Africa, and Europe. We just collect them into this little shop in Providence in the hopes that someone might draw in a breath full of beauty, skill and perspective, from somewhere across the world. It’s what the work does for us and the experience makes each day more prismatic and full of possibilities.