[audio] The word “art” does not appear in my job description, and not the words “gallery” or “exhibit” either. But somehow I ended up helping put together an art show. This has been quite a journey, and the exhibit that came of it, now open at the big new gallery at Indiana University South Bend, is full of astonishing objects created by sixty of the most interesting artists who have lived and worked in our area. Along the way I’ve learned how many hundreds of details and arrangements go into a big art exhibit. I have become acquainted with smart, friendly people committed to their work at area archives and museums and art departments. I’ve spoken with artists who always love having a chance to share their work. And almost accidentally I’ve had a small, free education in the fine arts. What a great ride this has been.

There were phone calls and letters and emails by the bucket. There were permission forms to be signed and delivery appointments to be made and people we wanted to reach but couldn’t. I cannot remember the last time I worked on a project so drenched in details. If you are a big thinker who enjoys delegating the details to others, and someone says to you, “Wanna help with our big art exhibit,” I suggest you smile and turn and run far, far away.

But then there is the art itself. If you go to the show at IU South Bend, which is free and open to the public, you’ll find your own favorites. In this snowy season I keep thinking about a particular springtime painting of an artist’s country cottage, with sunlight washing over the roof and walls. The trees are heavy with white blossoms and leaves just emerging. In the gaps between the branches, the sky is richly blue and the whole scene heralds both a beautiful day and a fresh season unfolding. The world feels full 0f possibility when you stand in front of a painting like that. In the show there are vivid portraits, playful, mind-bending abstractions, and sweeping landscapes. There are big, beautiful tributes to big, beautiful architecture. There are completely unpredictable ceramic pieces that give the impression that artists who work in clay may be the strangest dreamers of us all.

And there are quiet moments of human experience, distilled in a few simple strokes–I’m thinking here of a drawing of one man leaning over and ministering to another man on his sickbed, selflessly tending to a fellow human being who is in peril for his life.

People who love art make big claims for it. One of our country’s finest poets, Adrienne Rich, once said, “I don’t think we can separate art from overall human dignity and hope.” That seems right. I like the extravagance of these works, too. Our area artists thrive on great big challenges, and it’s good for my morale to see people tasking themselves with the making of something grand. These artists worked really hard, and they claim the freedom to create whatever they can imagine, which is inspiring all by itself, and along the way these fabulous objects are left behind for us to feel and enjoy. Maybe I’ll see you at the show, which continues at IU South Bend until January 25th.

President Lyndon Johnson shared a small theory of how poverty works in his state of the union address in 1964. A key passage:

Very often a lack of jobs and money is not the cause of poverty, but the symptom. The cause may lie deeper — in our failure to give our fellow citizens a fair chance to develop their own capacities, in a lack of education and training, in a lack of medical care and housing, in a lack of decent communities in which to live and bring up their children.

Later in the spring he sent a message to Congress which elaborated:

What does this poverty mean to those who endure it ?

It means a daily struggle to secure the necessities for even a meager existence. It means that the abundance, the comforts, the opportunities they see all around them are beyond their grasp.

Worst of all, it means hopelessness for the young.

The young man or woman who grows up without a decent education, in a broken home, in a hostile and squalid environment, in ill health or in the face of racial injustice-that young man or woman is often trapped in a life of poverty.

He does not have the skills demanded by a complex society. He does not know how to acquire those skills. He faces a mounting sense of despair which drains initiative and ambition and energy.

This basic understanding still states the case, I believe.

I’m grateful today for the complex, deeply functioning bond between companies that make such things as snow plows, the employees with the right expertise at those companies, the city and county governments that plan for predictable emergencies, buy necessary equipment, keep a skilled team to maintain and operate the equipment, and my neighbors who believe in their community and share the cost of public services. Well done all around….

The remote thermometer on the north side of the garage now registers 84 degrees colder than the thermometer here in the room where I sit typing.

Fourteen inches of snow on the roof of the bird feeder, I’d say. The board that forms the seat of the old-fashioned tree swing is just a few inches above the snow. Most area public facilities are closed tomorrow, when the temperature will drop to zero by sunrise and continue dropping for the rest of the day, perhaps to -14 or lower by the next morning. There is homemade soup in the fridge, and staples enough for the duration. We don’t usually see the weather push us around like this, but here goes.

Pretty nice set of backup singers on this one. What is it, two stripped-to-the-core verses, maybe three chords that a novice could reach for, a melody anyone sing, and a bare emotion of world weariness that sooner or later comes around. [Via John Duffy.]

The gallery is filling day by day for the big art show that runs most of January. Nearly sixty works, I think. One that I wish we could have in the show I saw in the chapel of a men’s dormitory not far from here. The stations of the cross, the narrative in most Catholic churches set out in numbered images around the sides of the sanctuary, tracing the path of Christ from trial to crucifixion, burial, and resurrection. In one frame in the dormitory chapel, Simon leaned over to begin taking the weight of the cross from a struggling Christ, while a broad-shouldered soldier looked on impassively. Nothing else in the scene. The simple, quiet contrast was remarkable, communicating instantaneously the two paths in life: service informed by empathy, or judgment at arm’s length simplified by discipline and authority.

A dazzling collection of regional art is going up in the Indiana University South Bend gallery. Here is a detail from a big, smashing painting by Harry Ahn, for example.

Digging the a5.gg in-browser notepad that uses the browser’s memory, loads in a snap, and is happy to live in the toolbar below the address box if you drag it there just once. Nicely done, Jason Cooper (@jasecoop).

Conversation in the check-out aisle, two white-haired women each with a cart and a modest number of items. Chatting about nothing, then about Downton Abbey, then about the beloved old movies on the cable. “My husband taped those,” one said. “My husband taped them too,” the other said. “How long were you married?” “Fifty-six years. And you?” “Fifty-nine. When did you lose your husband?” “Three years ago. And you?” “Three weeks ago.” “Oh, my dear,” she said, gently placing a hand on the other woman’s arm. Knowing enough about what another person might have endured, a deepening…