What is the value of art?

Evelyn C. McDonald

Arts & Culture Reporter

February 8, 2017 1:15 p.m.

Are the arts just frills, not very useful? That’s something I have thought about and written about a lot, especially over the months I’ve been commenting on our local arts and culture scene. Three recent occasions have given me an interesting perspective on that question and have led me to believe that the arts define us.

Shady Ladies Art Studio had an art show and reception last week. They invited local artists to enter a People’s Choice contest on the subject of trees. You would have been amazed at the variety of paintings and photos of trees. My personal favorite was Jim Ekstrom’s sepia photo of trees in the Okefenokee Swamp. The winner will be announced later in February when the invitation to enter the next show goes out.

My next art experience came watching Itzhak Perlman last Monday night. It’s not often when we get to see someone at the top of their game. Perlman is a consummate artist and a warm voice talking about music. He isn’t above joking, referring to “fiddles” or playing a piece he described as “written by someone 200 years ago – John Williams” and then playing the beautiful theme from “Schindler’s List.”

What tied these events together was my experience cataloguing pottery sherds in the museum’s archives. I was holding a fragment of a pot made over a millennium ago; I assume by the Timucua. It was built up from coils of clay as the Timucua people had no wheel. The outside coils would be smoothed using a paddle. The curvature of the fragment suggested that it was about 12” in diameter.

Probably used for serving food or perhaps even cooking.

They carved checker board squares or diamond shapes into the paddle and used it to decorate the outside of the pot. Clearly they didn’t have to do that; it wasn’t necessary for serving food nor was it useful. The people who lived here and made these pots were driven to create beauty for no apparent reason other than to create something pleasing to the eye.

And that’s the thing that struck me. I believe we are driven to create beauty, to decorate our lives. The artists of Shady Ladies and the artists who entered their contest were driven to create, to turn elements of the world around them into pleasing works. Perlman, who has not had the easiest life as a survivor of polio, creates beauty every time he picks up the violin and bow. The Timucua potter was not content to make a useful object. He or she wanted that object to look beautiful. Perhaps that is what makes us human.

Evelyn McDonald moved to Fernandina Beach from the Maryland suburbs of Washington, D.C. in 2006. She is a chair of Arts & Culture Nassau, a city commission charged with support of the arts in Nassau County. She serves on FSCJ's Curriculum Committee for the Center for Lifelong Learning. She is also the chair of the Dean’s Council for the Carpenter Library at the UNF. Ms. McDonald has MS in Technology Management from the University of Maryland’s University College and a BA in Spanish from the University of Michigan.