A few weeks ago I went to the Oklahoma City Museum of Art with my family to see the Passages Exhibit. A temporary exhibit of Biblical History on display at the museum until October. It is one of the most impressive historic display that I've ever had the pleasure to witness. From the Dead Sea Scrolls, to Gutenburg Bibles. From Ethiopia to the Reformation and King Henry the VIII. If you are a biblical scholar it would definitely be worth driving to Oklahoma to see this display. No photography is allowed in the exhibit, but I did get some photos of the museum itself.
This exhibit is brought to you by the family who began the Hobby Lobby company. It is good to see companies bringing something back to the community.
A nice way to spend a hot summer day was to go to the museum.
This Giant glass sculpture graces the foyer of the Museum.
sculpture by Dale Chihuly
Beautiful and impressive.
2nd floor exhibit hall where you can see artists such as Georgia O'Keefe
Beautiful...
The aim of every artist is to arrest motion, which is life, by artificial means and hold it fixed so that a hundred years later, when a stranger looks at it, it moves again since it is life. ~William Faulkner
Life beats down and crushes the soul and art reminds you that you have one. ~Stella Adler
No great artist ever sees things as they really are. If he did, he would cease to be an artist. ~Oscar Wilde
We all know that Art is not truth. Art is a lie that makes us realize truth, at least the truth that is given us to understand. The artist must know the manner whereby to convince others of the truthfulness of his lies. ~Pablo Picasso
There is no surer method of evading the world than by following Art, and no surer method of linking oneself to it than by Art. ~Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
a detail from the Portrait of Johne Locke
Great art is as irrational as great music. It is mad with its own loveliness. ~George Jean Nathan, House of Satan
Oklahoma is an oil rich state. I've been to numerous museums and workshops for teachers in which our oil and natural gas corporations have been extremely generous in educating the public and teachers in the Arts, so when I hear political rhetoric speaking of the profits made by oil companies I think of all of the things they sponsor in Oklahoma. Just because a corporation is needed and successful doesn't make it inherently evil. While we need petroleum, Apple and Google are praised as successes and it seems that petroleum is consistently termed evil by the vitriolic political rhetoric thrown around by the certain political factions and leaders, who also patronize such establishments as the fine arts.
It is funny that it seems to be the assumption that those who support the arts, must lean to the far left of the spectrum. Corporations provide plenty to the arts and the public, and the wonderful thing about corporations donating money to the arts is, no one is donating who does not want to. I owe some of my passion for photography to corporations such as Chesapeake who sponsored me as a teacher in 2009 to attend the Oklahoma Fine Arts Institute at Quartz Mountain. Where I had the opportunity to study fine art photography with Amy Stein and Ben Long, were it not for sponsors such as these I could have never attended such a workshop and for that I appreciative.
While the political left cries for more taxation (which will cut into corporate donations for places like this). The Government supports the arts through organizations such as the National Endowment for the Humanities, another organization who has influenced my greatly. The NEH has given me more tools as a teacher than any district or State Department of Education ever has, their programs for Educators mean the world to those who have participated in them. While we suffer through dry, pedagogic, downright boring trainings, as teachers in my former district the NEH brings educational, enlightening and enriching life experiences to the teachers who participate in them, they are not just the "Cowboy Poetry" that the right spews in their anti-arts rhetoric. But, I don't believe the right is "anti-art" so much as using common sense logic in being able to see that some programs are more important than others.
There is an area of grey in politics, on both sides if you can see that both sides can contribute for society, the "big oil" and "Government agencies" both can do wonderful things for "The People," Regardless of what the political outcomes people will continue to make and create art for others to appreciate. If you are truly and artist, and are doing something you enjoy with a passion you will find a way to make it happen and it will be a part of your daily life.
Either way, if both sides have their way, the budget cuts will hit the arts, while if higher taxation comes into play arts will take a cut from corporate sponsorships. I personally prefer the idea of individuals supporting the arts. Because an individual has choice, while a beauracracy is a machine making decisions for the people.
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