{"id":1702,"date":"2017-12-03T15:21:29","date_gmt":"2017-12-03T23:21:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.maureeneppstein.com\/mve_journal\/?p=1702"},"modified":"2017-12-03T15:21:29","modified_gmt":"2017-12-03T23:21:29","slug":"the-place-of-art","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.maureeneppstein.com\/mve_journal\/?p=1702","title":{"rendered":"The place of art"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Maureen practicing violin, c. 1952<\/p><\/div>\n

What is art, and what place has it had in my life? <\/em>This was the assigned topic for the first set of high school student essays I graded in my first paying job in California. In those days, the late 1960s, California schools had enough money to hire readers to relieve teachers of the time-consuming task of grading papers. I worked primarily with Millicent Rutherford, the Humanities teacher at Lynbrook High School, in the Cupertino Union School District. Over time, we developed a warm friendship.<\/p>\n

I was saddened to learn that Millicent died last October, at the age of 91. Her obituary<\/a> notes: \u201cShe will be remembered for her glittering sense of style, her sharp wit, and her boundless energy.\u201d A 1991 Los Angeles Times<\/em> article<\/a> on remembering teachers who made a difference\u00a0 includes an anecdote by Stephen Bennett, CEO of AIDS Project Los Angeles:<\/p>\n

“We’d study Italian art and [Ms Rutherford] would get . . . photographs from some of the Pompeian paintings that are not typically looked at\u2014the parts of Pompeii they won’t show you because the graphics on the wall are what Americans would consider lewd. And she’d show up in a Pompeian red dress to start the day.\u201d<\/p>\n

To honor Millicent\u2019s memory, I\u2019ve been thinking about how I might respond to her essay topic.<\/p>\n

When I was the age of Millicent\u2019s students, music was my passion. I played second violin in my town\u2019s municipal orchestra. At my first concert, the orchestra tackled Beethoven\u2019s Symphony No. 5. It must have sounded decidedly amateurish. But the experience of being a part of that magnificent work, of sharing the language of music with my fellow musicians and with an audience, is a thrill that has always stayed with me.<\/p>\n

\"orchestra<\/a>

Tauranga Municipal Orchestra at rehearsal in the high school assembly hall, c. 1952. I am in the front row, just to the left of the podium.<\/p><\/div>\n

\"\"<\/a>

“The Old King” by Georges Rouault<\/p><\/div>\n

Painting too speaks a language without words. On the wall of my office is a reproduction of Georges Rouault\u2019s \u201cThe Old King.\u201d I saw the original fifty years ago, at the National Gallery in London. Friends I had come with moved to another room without me as I sat on a gallery bench, weeping. I still weep inside when I look at it.<\/p>\n

Concerts, theatre, dance performances and visits to art galleries have always been a major part of my life. The written word has been my personal art form. To struggle with the lines of a poem, to convey emotional meaning through images, leads me to a personal answer to the question: \u201cWhat is art?\u201d For me, it is a way of sharing what is meaningful in our lives.<\/p>\n

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What is art, and what place has it had in my life? This was the assigned topic for the first set of high school student essays I graded in my first paying job in California. In those days, the late 1960s, California schools had enough money to hire readers to relieve teachers of the time-consuming […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[156,311,129,153,260,7,5],"tags":[423,474,473,402],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maureeneppstein.com\/mve_journal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1702"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maureeneppstein.com\/mve_journal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maureeneppstein.com\/mve_journal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maureeneppstein.com\/mve_journal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maureeneppstein.com\/mve_journal\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1702"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.maureeneppstein.com\/mve_journal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1702\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1713,"href":"https:\/\/www.maureeneppstein.com\/mve_journal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1702\/revisions\/1713"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maureeneppstein.com\/mve_journal\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1702"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maureeneppstein.com\/mve_journal\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1702"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maureeneppstein.com\/mve_journal\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1702"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}