Oregon Humanities

Eyes Opened Wide

In late summer of 1979 Dale Eldred created a series of interconnected sculptures of refractive light panels sited at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, across expansive lawns and along the median of Volker Boulevard. The refractive tape created prisms that changed with every movement of the viewer, the sun, the moon, and the earth’s rotation. I was a new freshman at the Kansas City Art Institute, and the playfulness and gentle thoughtfulness of the sculpture quickened my heart and welcomed me home. I felt I had arrived to a place where I would be understood and folded into a community that I would gladly call my own.

I have spent the last several months touring a few state universities and a couple of private colleges with my daughter, a senior at Cleveland High School in Portland. I am proud of her confidence in asking questions and her willingness to jump into unfamiliar situations. But I am watching her carefully. She will learn in many situations and environments. She will continue to travel and ask questions, read and think, dance and sing. I examine the beautifully manicured campuses to see where it is that she will find that alignment of people who challenge her point of view, push her to work hard, and embrace her into a community that she will call her own. I watch. I wonder. Is this the place?

Dale Eldred worked with elemental principles of time, the earth’s rotation, light from the sun or the headlights of passing cars, geography, and the spectrum of colors. Art critic Antero Kare writes, “Dale Eldred is the most public artist. His tools are huge but his method is subtle and gentle. He brings the audience to the essentials and leaves us to a discussion with the seasons, and with the rhythms of nature and culture.” In experiencing this installation I found my eyes were opened wide that freshman year; I began to learn to look and think, carefully and more critically. It was within the safety of that community that I allowed myself to push harder and take greater intellectual and artistic risks. I learned the common language of that visual community. Like all groups, ours included visual, auditory, and kinesthetic learners. We read, drew, painted, discussed, critiqued, and listened.

As for my daughter, next September she will arrive on a large or small campus, look around and carve out her space. She will move through a liberal arts education and glean from it all that she can. In this place she will find that she is a giver and receiver, a student and educator. It is my hope that the community she finds will be large in ideas and supportive of her young self. I anticipate her confidence as she emerges from the next four years and comes into the world with a new depth of understanding, ready to experience the expanding community of our times.

About Carole Shellhart

Carole Shellhart is Oregon Humanities finance manager, known to her colleagues as a numbers guru, finance maven, and artist.

02 November 2009 | Posted by Carole Shellhart in Community Inside O. Hm. New Ideas
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