Last Monday I carried my notebook and camera into the Water Street Gallery in downtown Douglas, Michigan, to meet, in person, a sculpture I’d been admiring in photographs: Native Figure #70, by David Adix. The gallery staff had given me the following assignment: respond, in one hundred words or less, to one of the pieces of art in their current exhibition, It’s a Matter of Opinion. More precisely, they were looking for my “opinion”–quotation marks theirs. Assignments like these, I’ve learned, are difficult and invaluable. You begin with clear parameters, and, if you’re lucky, end with something someone else will be pleased they’ve read.
I took a seat on a bench below Native Figure. Midday light poured in the window making eloquent shadows. A family roamed through with small children, one of whom exclaimed, “It’s like a small museum!” Ah yes, I agreed to myself, settling into the comfort of spaces devoted to art. I took some notes and some photographs, all of which I’ve been living with, in the small bits of time I can manage these days. You can view the sculpture and read the poem that emerged at Water Street (98 Center St., Douglas, Michigan), and I’ll read there (along with other writers who took on the challenge) Saturday, September 28, 2013. The event begins at 6 pm. Click here to read the poem.
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