The Great Conversation

 

I was sitting in Timothy Westbrook’s studio this afternoon. It is a few days after his first successful gallery showing and already the man is back at work. While Timothy constructed new fabric joining cassette tape and wool I listened to the repeating slick/slack/creak/crack sound of his loom in motion. With the new dress in the works I sat thinking about the ongoing, timeless, human dialogue we seem to have termed “The Great Conversation.” This may seem strange or lofty material to be considering at work, but when surrounded with artwork on every wall you do feel like you’re having a regular dialogue with the artists. In this case, when Tim is working, you can have a conversation. Sitting in this artist’s studio/gallery, the below is something I observed. Considering, and offering to, that great conversation.

 

The art created

these many human years

 

the sculptures

composed symphonies and jazz,

finger paint family portraits.

All of our literature,

film and photography

dance and theatre and

elaborate costume

 

The Dadas, the punk rockers

the Impressionists

and the Rococo

 

Even cave paintings and

Damien Hirst too

 

Every work

is a flare shot into the clouds

of a dark star-speckled sky, a prayer,

a boomerang flung quietly in to the ether,

 

Hopeful

 

that on the other end

they make contact

and are returned

by someone who

grins and responds,

 

“Me

too.”