Arts Fest Extraordinaire

While Maya captured my happiness on film, the arts festival has prompted a longer and deeper sense of wonder in me.  Watching kids engage so deeply in a collaborative process that yielded such profound pieces in such a short time was just incredible.  The queries that arose from their work were really sophisticated:

• What is it to capture someone's image - what does it mean to represent someone else? 
• What is it to "have come from different boats, but all be in the same boat now?"
• What is it to honor and celebrate individual differences, and unique individual gifts, but still maintain equal opportunity (and how do we decide which gifts are most valuable in a community?) 
• What are our deepest questions for Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr?  What are our questions for each other about maintaining his vision for equality and peace and nonviolence? 
• What does "Equality" really mean to us? 

The use of the arts to explore these questions was so fabulous and I hope the conversation goes on for a long time. 

For me, it was followed up by listening to Bill McKibbon on Friday night. I am hoping I can convince Bethany to write a guest post - she could summarize much better than I can - but the take away for me is that we (adults) need to try some art activism ourselves, and really commit to creating political change by influencing others about our deepest commitment to equality and a healthy planet.