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Highlands Today

What Good Is Art?

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Joyce Minor

Published: November 4, 2007

One of my favorite things about Highlands County is that it's a melting pot. We have people here from every corner of the United States as well as many foreign countries. Just go to the mall or the circle in downtown Sebring and watch the parade of people. You'll see old, middle-aged and young, as well as every race and ethnic variety.

Or go into any of our many fine restaurants and listen to the people around you. You'll hear accents from Brooklyn to Jamaican and everything in between. It's what gives our county a life all its own.

That mix of people also gives us a mix of cultures that enriches our choices in everything from the clothes in our stores, to the foods in our restaurants, the music on our radios, and the art you'll find when you walk the streets of downtown Sebring during the upcoming Arts Festival.

I'm not an artist, but I do appreciate art in all its myriad forms. I never cease to marvel at the creativity innate in the human spirit. The universal urge toward artistic expression, in everything from pottery to pastries to photography, is proof that we humans are all cut from the same cloth.

One of my husband's interests is archaeology, so we subscribe to Biblical Archaeology magazine. It always amazes me to see the artistry in objects thousands of years old, like coins, frescos, statues and household implements.

Some of the earliest evidence of human existence is cave paintings – proof that, man's urge to express his thoughts, emotions, and experiences was released through art, long before written language was developed.

Of course, language, too, can be art. From Inuit to Indonesian, and from Jerusalem to Japan, all cultures, primitive or highly developed, have their poets and storytellers.

Psychiatrists tell us that art is one of the best therapies for those who are troubled, emotionally or psychologically. Teachers know that art can work wonders with children, encouraging individual effort and coaxing even the most timid to express themselves.

So here's to the artist in all of us, whatever your venue. Whether you return to an art form you tried many years ago, or launch off into something completely new, get out there and create something.

Art lifts the human spirit. And it makes our society richer by turning our diversity into a catalyst for unity and understanding. Qualities we never seem to have enough of these days.

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