I'm also wondering what I will say. What do I say about the pile of books so artistically arranged by Larry displayed close to the wine and bread buffet?
The display is also right next to Odia's symbolic crowd of people - in visual line with the red fringed hem - that took so long to weave and sew. I see some similarity actually.
We have just learned that context is extremely important to art. Something displayed in an art gallery means something entirely different then if it were displayed in Walmart. It could be the same object - but the setting is part of the message - part of the art.
The books next to the Hem of His Garment seem to take on a different meaning than if they were in a book store.
I start to think of the similarities. She uses thread to tell her story and her desire for healing. I have used words to tell my story and express my desire for healing and justice as well.
Both of ours took time. Her installation art took four years to weave and sew - mine took two. Her's took 17 years to experience and grow - mine took eight. There is something about time in both of ours. It takes time to heal, time to tell our stories, and the right timing to show them.
Both are stories. One is a current personal story intermingled with an ancient story. The other is also a personal story but it is built on a current experience. Both touch on justice, both touch on pain, both touch on the pursuit of healing. Both are about being suspended.
However the other day, someone asked me if my book was more of a "positional piece" than a personal story which caused me to wonder/ponder this. I had always thought I was a simple story teller and that was the dominant purpose for the book. Positional? It causes me some concern to think it is more positional than story. What is a positional piece doing in an art gallery? It needs a soap box of some sort.
Yet I need to admit that I am declaring a position. I want anyone who is interested in our response to the trial, to know what I think and why. It certainly isn't the only reason that I've written it - but it is one of the reasons.
So if it is positional, I hope it declares my position not only on the state of justice in our country and in our lives, but on the need to use writing as an art therapy, to use writing as a means of expressing one's soul - as a means of discovering one's soul.
Then I wonder are all art pieces in some ways positional pieces?
...in a sense, all poetry is positional: to try to express one's position in regard to the universe embraced by consciousness, is an immemorial urge. The arms of consciousness reach out and grope, and the longer the better. Tentacles, not wings, are Apollo's natural members. - Vladimir Nabokov