So I’m here again, sat in my little black chair, listening to Gary Ringroad coo: ‘We live in uncertain times’ over and over. (He will have said it 70 times by the time I go home. Yes, I have calculated how many times I will watch this video today.)
Elysian Platinum Fields
It is Saturday so we’ve had quite a few visitors through the doors, perhaps more than on a weekday. These visitors have been old, young, friends, family, teenagers and couples.
I find it fascinating to sit here pretending I’m not watching them: observing them look, ponder, react, photograph and comment. Children want to touch. Adults want to understand.
My chair
But what they all have in common is that they act with the quiet and decorum they might use in a church or library. Art galleries calm people. Galleries induce a sense of the now and the mindful in people. Visitors walk slowly and purposefully, like they might in the house of God. They take on the persona of the humble, as if art is mystical and otherworldly.
After three hours here I feel calm and contemplative, I feel the majesty of art too. I feel as if I’ve been in a great church: the church of creativity.