Art to Heart: The Struggle for Human Rights in Spirit, Song, Poetry and Art

Last Sunday I attended "Art to Heart: The Struggle for Human Rights in Spirit, Song, Poetry and Art," an event at St. George's Episcopal Church. This event was meant to commemorate the life and message of Martin Luther King Jr. and showcased various artistic venues that related to him. The program's main focus described art the process of a struggle followed by an exultation, and I think that was shown in several different parts of the program. There was an African Dance, Yiddish Song, short play, and What I liked about this program was that the leaders of several different religious institutions came together to promote the ideas of Martin Luther King in unity. I think that coming together like that was a great example of MLK's desire to have equality among the human race.
The keynote speaker of this program was Marta Sanchez, an artist who focuses on creating peace through poetry and art. She described her artistic process as holding on to a bit of history with each color she painted. Through creating her color worlds she could represent form and different aspects of her life, capturing moments in a type of visual immortality. I liked her speech right away because what she was saying reminded me of reminded me of a favorite passage of mine, by Rainer Rilke, an Austrian philosopher who once was an apprentice for the great sculptor, Rodin. Although this is surely not a direct quotation of his writing, Rilke described the artist's job as a "saving" of our material and internal worlds. I think that this is my purpose in creating art, and I found it very moving that she shared my vision. The program exuded a powerful message to the audience and left me with a lot to think about.