Developing a Reader’s Eye

Event Details

Event Description

Reading, like other encounters with art, deepens our encounter with life itself. We can feel ourselves changed by a painting or sculpture, a book, a song, or a dance. The poet Ted Hughes once said in an interview that he had “formulated a little notion” that art is a means of psychological repair, and went on to say, “We may not think at the moment it’s the most valuable thing we do, but of any past civilization the one thing that we want to preserve is their art. Because it still operates for us as medicine.”

Drawing on essays from her new book, In the Field, GG award-winning author Sadiqa de Meijer ventures onto the mysterious ground where reading becomes transformative. What rites of passage make us into artists or healers? What causes us to want to touch the art in galleries? And what happens in our imaginations when we engage in the collaborative solitude of reading a book?

These and other questions will be the portals through which we explore what art can mean to us both personally and culturally. Join us for a reading and open conversation that is bound to nurture a renewed attention to the creativity of living.