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I had my epiphany about modern art in Barbara Hepworth's sculpture
garden in Cornwall, England, when I was 19 years old. Before that
moment I had been the type of person who considered myself an art
lover yet sniffed at anything that was even mildly
non-representational. I once walked into a room at the Tate that
was filled with monumental Rothkos, snorted, and walked right back
out again. Despite my scorn, I think the more modern stuff had been
seeping in around the edges of my consciousness, surreptitiously
infecting my brain. I was in St. Ives with my parents over my spring
holiday during my year abroad. I knew the Tate had converted
Hepworth's house there into a mini-museum of her work, so I took an
afternoon to go check it out. There's something about the light in
St. Ives that has attracted artists there for centuries. Standing in
that light, surrounded by Hepworth's amazing organic shapes carved out
of rock and steel, I finally got it. Ask for their guestbook from
1996 and find where I tried to express what I was feeling in three
sentences or less.
Over a year later I took a friend back to the garden with me in the
attempt to share with him a little bit of that sense of discovery.
As we stood there he took my hand and placed it against one of the
sculptures, held it there as I attempted to pull away. I had grown
up peering at Greek and Roman marble through glass and staying behind
the velvet rope in galleries. Touching this sculpture was not
OK. But no avenging docent came swooping down on me, and finally I
just relaxed and enjoyed the feel of the metal under my palm.
To touch something is to connect with the person who created it and
all of her thoughts and feelings, a powerful thing indeed. It
carries you back into a different time and space. Dig your fingers
in the dirt, feel this planet's web of life. Touch another person,
see what happens then. Allow someone to touch you. That's the
bravest thing you can do.
T.S. Eliot understood.
"...music heard so deeply
That it is not heard at all, but you are the music
While the music lasts."
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Heidi J. De Vries
