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Art Unites Us During a Most Challenging Year
As 2020 moves along, I keep returning to the same question that I asked myself in March when all this craziness started: What will our kids remember from this challenging year? At times, it feels a bit as if our world dimmed from a glossy colorful picture to a matte black and white image. Now, here we are, seven months later, learning about resilience, compassion, and care. Through all of this, we have a deepened sense of our fragility and a strong appreciation that our strength comes from being part of a community.
This month, through the Patrick Dougherty project, CCES is prioritizing an initiative that can truly bring us back together. Mr. Dougherty is presenting us the opportunity to work together as a community to create a significant cultural contribution for our kids and help awaken our intellectual curiosity. Art is perhaps one of the most tangible ways by which we can come to understand each other. It shakes our sleepy interest about things unfamiliar or different and ultimately helps us understand or even embrace them.
Patrick Dougherty's sculpture installations that are happening now on campus are a great example of a communal collaborative experience. CCES families are working united as an orchestra, creating work in dialogue with nature on a monumental scale. We are clipping, snipping, and curving sticks together. The final pieces will be there for many years to come, dancing an eternal dance with the seasons and the landscape, allowing the kids to touch, hide, imagine, and interact with them. It will make the walk-through art part of their everyday playful environment.
This month, through the Patrick Dougherty project, CCES is prioritizing an initiative that can truly bring us back together. Mr. Dougherty is presenting us the opportunity to work together as a community to create a significant cultural contribution for our kids and help awaken our intellectual curiosity. Art is perhaps one of the most tangible ways by which we can come to understand each other. It shakes our sleepy interest about things unfamiliar or different and ultimately helps us understand or even embrace them.
Patrick Dougherty's sculpture installations that are happening now on campus are a great example of a communal collaborative experience. CCES families are working united as an orchestra, creating work in dialogue with nature on a monumental scale. We are clipping, snipping, and curving sticks together. The final pieces will be there for many years to come, dancing an eternal dance with the seasons and the landscape, allowing the kids to touch, hide, imagine, and interact with them. It will make the walk-through art part of their everyday playful environment.
When the pandemic is over (this too will pass), I hope my daughters Emma and Pippa, remember the magic of this project, and how art made us all feel part of something bigger than ourselves and closer to one another. And oh boy, we need to feel close to each other in 2020!
Date Posted 
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Nancy Denenberg10/14/2020 @ 6:49 PMBeautiful post and project!
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