What speaks to you?
No, I don’t mean the neighbor across the fence that never seems to STOP speaking, or the people at work who talk AT you all day long, rather than TO you…we’ve all had enough of that.
What I mean is…what gets you ‘right there’?
Is it the motion-like energy of someone’s excellent woodworking, the smell of a freshly turned-out masterpiece? The flow of a cleverly created, hand-blown offering of colored glass? How about the happy-go-lucky feeling of a reincarnated piece of metal yard art? Is it pottery, with that deep connection from clay gathered out of the earth itself? It might even be the artist who captured in paint or some other medium the essence of a scene from your childhood, or your happiest moment as an adult, as if they've read your memory.
August thirteenth and fourteenth is a great time for you to find out. Nampa’s lush, green Lakeview Park will be filled with a variety of treasures to choose from as over 150 artists, craftsmen, vendors and showbiz types all share a common goal; to entertain you through the art of expression. It’s time once again for the Nampa Festival of the Arts, in its 25th year and getting ready to host over 15,000 visitors. Make that 15,000 and one. You.
Question: What can you express through art?
Better Question: What can’t you?
“The more ways you find to express yourself, the happier you’ll be,” were the wise words of my Psych 101 professor, and she’s right.
While I don’t express myself through art on a daily basis like I could or should, spending a day or two at the Nampa Festival of the Arts each year often gets those creative juices flowing again. Finally; self-expression once more!
I might, just twenty-four hours later, find myself arranging a floral bouquet for no better reason than that the house needs some color, garnishing a dinner dish with flare as I serve it up to certain surprised familial recipients, or realize that I am absent-mindedly doodling out a landscape on my message pad as I’m kept on the phone, on hold.
The point is, life’s always a bit more exciting once I’ve been exposed to a few gutsy people who aren’t in the least bit afraid to express themselves, or to share their talent. The residual effects are pretty satisfying, to myself and those lucky beneficiaries around me. Bathrooms get repainted and redecorated. Outside shrubbery gets sculpted into a more flattering shape, one that suits my mood. Old furniture gets a new coat of color, then an added and unexpected flourish, bringing relief to the wannabe artisan in me.
They’re all symptoms of one who’s been to the Nampa Festival of the Arts.
What speaks to me? Glass. Colored. Sleek. Light-weight and thin. It’s taken me a few years to figure that out, but there you have it.
Visit the Nampa Festival of the Arts and go find out what it is that speaks most to you. You’ll know it when you see it.
For more information, see:
http://www.nampaparksandrecreation.org/NampaFestivalOfArts.aspx
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