Give A Child A Camera: December 2011

The Importance of Art

"Art is an irreplaceable way of understanding and expressing the world -- equal to but distinct from scientific and conceptual methods. Art addresses us in the fullness of our being -- simultaneously speaking to our intellect, emotions, intuition, imagination, memory, and physical senses. There are some truths about life that can be expressed only as stories, or songs, or images.

"Art delights, instructs, consoles. It educates our emotions. And it remembers. As Robert Frost once said about poetry, 'It is a way of remembering that which would impoverish us to forget.' Art awakens, enlarges, refines, and restores our humanity. You don't outgrow art. The same work can mean something different at every stage of your life."

-- Dana Gioia

"Photography is a magical thing! A magic thing with all sorts of mysterious smells, a bit strange and frighetning, but something you learn to love very quickly!

"Papa lifts me up under the black cloth to let me see the portrait he is going to take. A picture...very soon it will be printed and then it's a photograph. at this moment it's a beautiful little tableau - upside down and with all those marvelous colors on the frosted glass. Alive! Almost more enchanting and clear than the reality I was staring at."

-- Jacque-Henri Lartigue, excerpt from his childhood journal

Give A Child A Camera

Sunday, December 4, 2011

Elora, Age 6