Art saves lives by bringing us together
“ART SAVES LIVES” is emblazoned on the surface of my favorite coffee mug. It always inspires me and I can admit that coffee tastes best in this very mug. I believe there’s some truth to the simple phrase; it has been demonstrated to me many times and in many ways over my seven decades on the planet.
Each first weekend in August I travel to Newport for the great tradition of the jazz festival. My companion and I usually plank down some beach chairs by the main stage, making our base camp. The daily program will determine our movements in venturing about between the four stages as the music plays on simultaneously and overlapping. There’s so much art to choose from.
And what I love most about the occasion is how this music, this great art, is saving our lives by bringing all of us together. We are people of all ages, in black and brown and whitish tones of skin color. We sit close, very close at times, and we meet and chat, laughing together between the glorious sounds. We form brief relationships, often never learning each other’s names, but sharing in the art of our humanity by our mutual love for this great art form.
It is saving, if not savoring, our lives in the harmony of the music experienced in live performance by brilliant Black, brown and white jazz artists. It is a true celebration of peace and diversity.
At the festival there’s no stress, no competitive angling for positioning among the crowd of jazz lovers. People are polite. I am always struck at the courtesies extended me in obtaining a seat or a better viewing position. I react with similar kindness toward the many comrades sharing together over a long weekend. There are no differences among us that I can tell, because we are all celebrating under the Newport sky, being saved by the art we so love. It is a very lively and enthusiastic place. George Wein certainly had a great idea more than 60 years ago about this art form and bringing people together.
Art in all its forms does, I believe, save lives. The visual delights of paintings, old or modern, stir emotions in us, often bringing joy, and other times provoking us to think and react. There are moments of sadness, too. Sculptured memorials recall difficult times; such works are so needed to receive, remember and rekindle a gesture of healing by the beauty of humanity, bringing compassion and connection.
“Art saves lives” is inscribed on the writer’s coffee mug.
The truth of photography is so powerful and startling at times. It often addresses the shock of harsh realities. We see images of a devastated Lahaina, a failed Mediterranean shipwreck crossing with migrants, earthquakes and terrible floods laying waste to homes, whole towns and farmlands. The many pictures of war, famine and pain incite us to help. All of these things are so very real in reinforcing the power of the human spirt to endure and survive, compelling us to act. This is the art, the creativity that is saving our lives.
It’s far simpler and welcoming to listen to the magic of the music than to confront the screens of dark pictures moving by. But it is all of this art that is happening, the creative forces which we all possess and channel to save lives. We might begin with ourselves in determining the art which compels us to act, to turn toward each other in reaching for these human connections. It makes us feel better when this happens.
Art does indeed saves lives.
Stephan Brigidi is a retired professor of aesthetics, and a working artist living in Bristol.