Let’s give some thought to giving
Sharing with other artists and helping them to learn their craft and expand their skills more quickly has been the focus of my YouTube channel, which I started in 2019. There are about 88 videos on there right now and I plan to create lots more this year.
Since you are on my email list you may have noticed that as a thank you for being here I give you a downloadable print of one of my paintings several times a year. By now I believe that I’ve sent out about six or eight of them.
Now let me tell you about what I think is the greatest gift of art that I’m aware of.
Recently I was reminded of an artist who I’ve been following my entire life who gave the largest piece of art that I’ve been aware of. His name is Walter Anderson and he lived in Ocean Springs, Mississippi.
There’s a museum there dedicated to his art and the unique story of his life. He reportedly approached the architect for the newly constructed community center and asked if he could do the murals for the large center.
According to a plaque on the wall of the community center, “Anderson felt that it was the obligation of the artist to society to make people aware and appreciative of the particular place in which they live.”
He hoped that the people of the town would get involved and help him out but that never happened. In fact, the murals he painted were not what the people of Ocean Springs thought depicted the realistic view they had.
According to the plaque, “Disheartened by the public’s response, Anderson stopped working on his nearly completed murals. He would occasionally come back to work on the murals, but he passed away before he could finish the project.”
He died in November 1965 from cancer at the age of 62.
Now imagine for one moment that you wanted to do something very generous to give to your community and after spending so much time and effort creating it, the public didn’t even like it.
They thought of it as “useless graffiti.” And today he has a museum celebrating his work! Actually, he didn’t do this enormous project for free but only charged them $1.
Yes, you read that right…$1.
He lived a very eccentric life and to get to understand and experience nature completely he wanted to be one with nature. He used to row his tiny skiff to Horn Island in the Gulf of Mexico from Ocean Springs 100 times or more. He slept on the sandy beaches through hurricanes and storms.
There are many books about his life, all of which I have read many times and I think you would find them fascinating, as the lives of artists have always fascinated me.
I hope this might help you think of ways that you can give and share your creative work to others or your community. It’s about bringing beauty and goodness to those around us.
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