Driving through the rain seems to be part of attending an art exhibition. Headlights and red taillights in every drop of rain, being swept away by squeaking wipers. An autumn evening at some university for an artist that either taught there, or was a student. Attending my first one-person exhibition to see the works of a local artist was my path into Fine Arts.
Ruth Van Sickle Ford was the creator of the fine art I was about to experience. The exhibit was in the basement hallways of one of the university buildings, and extremely crowded with her former students.
Although I had met Mrs. Ford, and she had written a letter of introduction for me to attend the American Academy in Chicago, I had never seen her work. There was something about it that stirred something up inside of me that night. The buildings in her paintings were tilted and leaning toward cartoonish. Trees, simple and perspective off. Yet there was something there that reached people. People were talking about her, telling their favorite stories about the paintings, remembering something about Mrs. Ford with each work.
Over the years, attending exhibitions was part of a learning experience. Not all were so gripping as Mrs. Ford’s exhibition. Many were just gatherings where people munch on cheese and crackers and sip wine, with hors d'oeuvres being the attraction at many art exhibitions. Always the same group hovering around the hor d'oeuvres, some slipping treats wrapped in napkins into pockets or open handbags. Politics, the topic of most conversations, kept people occupied, or how the new mall was going to hurt the downtown. The art was incidental.
A call for attention, an introduction, a few words from the artist before conversations returned to pressing worldly problems. With the last hor d'oeuvres gone and coats buttoned up, the exhibition was over. “Call me on that matter,” and images on canvas faded as people rushed to waiting cars.
