I was first taken to an art museum in a pram…. and pretty much haven’t stopped since. My godfather is a well-regarded Australian artist and photographer, my neighbour went on to win the main prize at Sculpture by the Sea, people I’ve known since childhood have forged highly successful careers in the arts. So art has always been a reassuring rhythm against which my life has unfolded.
When I was in my 20s, I bought an “around-the-world-in-one-direction” ticket, and took myself on an art tour of Europe, the US and India….Then I lived in Europe and a train ride to see incredible collections of Marc Chagall works in a small town cathedral, or cycle around the Kroller Mueller Museum in the Netherlands or the Lourve and Musee D’Orsay in Paris was common… later it was the Ankor Watt complex in Cambodia which drew me … and the list goes on….
So when I was in Kansas City this year, I was drawn to visit the Nelson Atkins Art Museum – and not just because it was the closest place to where I was staying which made expresso coffee, but because it is recognised as having one of the broadest collections – and a particularly fine collection of Asian art.
This museum – funded by some of the incredible wealth of America’s philanthropists – is spectacular – it is surrounded by a sculpture park with more Henry Moore pieces than I’ve ever seen, casually scattered amid nature. I loved that people played mid-week soccer games on the fields amid giant shuttle cock sculptures, or the putt-putt golf course both of which dismiss the prejudice that art institutions value only high-brow or intimidating culture.
But it was this museum’s Native American galleries which repeatedly drew me. Partly, because I’d never really seen much art from the collection of cultures which predate the European-flavoured art which dominates so much of the modern world.
And I found myself repeatedly drawn to one piece in particular. Roxanne Swentzell’s Kosa Appreciating Anything. I wondered how anyone had made a figure which was a delightful as a small clay toddler, and how I wondered what it was that the figure could see in its empty hands.
I read that the artist was from the ancient native American cultures centred around New Mexico – collectively known as “Pueblo” and that a belief is that their people are the earth – come from the earth, return to the earth.
Kosa – there are a huge number of variously spellings but this is the one Swentzell uses – are magician figures who come up from the underworld to teach humans important lessons – like what they have forgotten to appreciate in life. While they are commonly depicted in pueblo art – normally stringy black and white striped figures with corn row ears – Swentzell’s creations are plump and child-like – more naïve than trickster.
In any case, it was this work which inspired me to make art, and to finally try to forge a career doing something in which I’m hardly aware that time is passing.
And that, in itself, is magic.