Monday, February 7, 2011
The View From Here
What do you get when you ask a bunch of visual artists to go to the same area and paint the landscape? At SAGA, you get 35 artists with 40 different views. This exhibition, "Paint Paradise: Views of the Salmon River Delta," is wonderful not just because it is a fine collection of excellent works, but because it drives home the point that we are all so amazingly unique in our perceptions. Micro, macro, highly realistic to the madly abstract, the art speaks to us about this extraordinary ecosystem. On opening night Louis Thomas, a Neskonlith elder, spoke about growing up on the delta; skating on the little ponds that formed in winter and playing in the tall grasses in summer. It made us all fall back into our own connective memories of those special natural places. Growing up, who didn't have their own place in the wild, a twisted tree to climb, a river with a secret pool for swimming? Can we not reflect upon our own paradises, and realize that we must protect those same kinds of places for our children and grandchildren? It's easy to wander around the gallery and gaze upon beautiful images, but I'm hoping people will take an extra step this time - out to the delta, to the tall grasses and tiny skating ponds.
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