Yesterday my husband dragged me out on a date. I say dragged because I wanted to stay home and work on my blog and other Seven Stones work. We were intending on going to a concert but beforehand he wanted to stop at a museum that we had heard about and he had free passes to. I was actually more interested in the museum for two reasons. 1) I didn’t like crowds and 2) I knew there was an MC Escher exhibit that had just opened.
When we arrived at the New Britain Museum of American Art we were pleasantly surprised. It was an open spacious wonderfully laid out museum with American art from the colonial period until today, including a commissioned piece in memory of the victims of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. My husband and I were so intrigued by the museum that we never made it to the concert.
The MC Escher exhibit was wonderful. I learned about his life and his interests in mathematics, landscapes and reality. However the two things that caught my attention the most was 1) he drew with his left hand – being left handed that gave me some vague sense that everything would work out and 2) I learned he used a technique called mezzotint which as far as I am concerned put him in the divinity category of artists.
Yet despite all of the impressiveness of the exhibit and of the museum, the artist that captured my attention that I am still thinking about is Dalton Ghetti. He takes years to complete his small intricate carvings out of wood and graphite. Small actually isn’t the correct word. He creates miniature experiences out of left over pencils. Although he doesn’t use a magnifying glass to create his work, it wasn’t until I picked up one as part of the display that I could truly see and feel his genius. In his artist statement he commented that most people who view his work comment on the amount of time it takes him to complete a piece. They can’t believe the patience he has.
I am struck by that when we see this genius many of us are more interested in the time he puts in rather than what he creates. When we are trapped in scarcity, being impatient and looking to technology to speed things up so we can work faster and faster . . . when we come across someone who values “slow contemplative work” we are shocked and amazed. We may actually believe that he is wasting his life spending two years to accomplish such a small piece of work. Escher might have agreed, he put down the mezzotint method after working with it for only three years because, “it takes too much time and effort from someone who rightfully or wrongly believes he has no time to waste.”
What would become available to us if we all slowed down a little? What if we all added some contemplative time to our life and work? Then what beautiful master pieces would we all produce individually and in our relationships? When I took the time to slow down and contemplate with my husband, I found an entire world in the small moments we shared.
Sources: “Eye” and MC Escher artist quote from www.mcescher.com “Alphabet” and artist quote from Dalton Ghetti are from the New Britian Museum of American Art