Open Book: When Life Becomes Art
The Connections That Are Essential To The Human Condition
by Anya Nitczynski
For the GPHN
I walk out of the theatre sobbing and don’t stop until a full 10 minutes later. I’m at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and I just saw a brilliant piece of art written and performed by Rob Madge and directed by Luke Sheppard called My Son’s A Queer But What Can You Do? No one in my group had dry eyes by the end of the show. I go on to see two more shows that day — both brilliant.
Traveling post-pandemic, at the Fringe festival and experiencing a crowded Royal Mile in Edinburgh, it seems that art and connection through it are back. The intense air of joy breathes life into the city. It was a revelation this summer. I went to the National Gallery of London and felt myself mourning the opportunity to analyze Van Gogh’s Chair with my mom. So I called her. She looked up the paintings I was seeing, and we analyzed. In those moments, the art wasn’t the most moving part of the experience. It was what the art invoked in me: emotions, revelations, thoughts, the need for my mother.
Art isn’t a good thing for the sake of being art, it’s good for the sake of creating domino effects of emotions and connection above all else. That day, art was my mom’s embrace from across an ocean. It was a lifeline to Denver and a gateway to exactly what I missed most about home.
I remember going to the Denver Art Museum with my grandmother a couple of years ago. They had an exhibit about fashion, and I left the museum with much more knowledge on how to dress up a black dress to transition from day to nighttime socialization than I knew when I walked in. I also knew more about my grandma’s many pursuers when she was a young adult. That day, art was advice and wisdom. It was family secrets and truths of the world.
There are poems and songs taped to the foot of my bed. Wordsworth, Dickenson, John Denver, Steve Earle, Bruce Springsteen. Every piece of literature in this collage my dad has in some way or another introduced me to. My favorite pieces of art are not my favorites solely because I like the way they look or sound. They’re my favorites because of how I found them, who introduced me to them, where I was in life when I found them.
Art is essential to the human condition. The art we lost through the pandemic will have a lasting impression on our world and our opinions. Similarly, the art that came out of the pandemic will have a lasting impression on the world and the people around us. I saw that at the Fringe festival. I see it in every person. I see it in myself. Art and life are interchangeable and essential to one another.
Anya Nitczynski is a sophomore at Denver School of the Arts. Her column appears monthly in these pages.