Westport Center for the Arts finds inspiration and strength in the role of art in society and the expressions of writers on the importance of the arts. This is a rotating collection of reflections and stories by diverse writers collected by our board members. Check back regularly for updates, and enjoy!

Beauty is Meaning

Jeanette Winterson's exquisite notion of "the paradox of active surrender" is often what art gives us:

When you love something like reading – or drawing or music or nature – it surrounds you with a sense of connection to something great. If you are lucky enough to know this, then your search for meaning involves whatever that Something is. It's an alchemical blend of affinity and focus that takes us to a place within that feels as close as we ever get to 'home.' It's like pulling into our own train station after a long trip – joy, relief, a pleasant exhaustion.

If a writer or artist creates a place of truth and spirit and generosity, then I may be able to enter and ride this person's train back to my own station. It's the same with beautiful music and art. Beauty is meaning.

Quoted in Maria Popover's Brain Pickings, March 11, 2020

Climate Change and Poetry

A reflection by Debra Dean Murphy in Christian Century April 17, 2023

Alarm bells are ringing about the effects of climate change, but are enough people hearing them?

Who better to sound the alarm about impending ecological doom than Mary Oliver, the widely read poet-naturalist-lover of the world who has immersed and invested herself in soil, seashore, forest, and wetland her whole life?

Oliver answers in the way that an artist must. The worst kind of poetry is preachy and argumentative. Oliver invites the reader into wonder, into the harvest of presence, so that in forgetting ourselves for a moment and attending, say, to the “trim and feistiness” of a single green moth, we might possibly (there are no guarantees, such is the risk art takes) be initiated into a practice, a form of wisdom, a way of life, whereby in time we might come to care passionately, purposefully, about more of our neighbors, human and nonhuman, with whom we share this one world.

Querying Memory

Arts Reflection by Marilynne Robinson

I learned from querying memory that perception itself is beautiful and that its most casual notice can make anything proof of the fact—the tiny flowering of a weed, the bright clarity of a puddle. If the First Commandment tells us to love God with all our minds, it seems that a presumptive respect for our minds is called for. If we are to celebrate creation, surely we should enjoy every means we are given to experience it, which certainly includes the unaccountable processes of memory and reflection. . . .

Historically, human life has fallen along a range from difficult to terrible, and humankind has managed to delight in itselfthrough it all. I suspect we are not bringing our full resources to bear in the matter of enjoying life deeply in all the ways we are given, that is, in the fact and by the means of our strange brilliance, individual and collective.

From her essay in The Christian Century, Nov. 18, 2020, “My Mind and What She Remembers”

God the Sculptor of the Mountains

by John Thornburg

God the sculptor of the mountains,
God the miller of the sand,
God the jeweler of the heavens,
God the potter of the land:
you are womb of all creation,
we are formless; shape us now.

God the nuisance to the Pharaoh,
God the cleaver of the sea,
God the pillar of the darkness,
God the beacon of the free:
you are gate of all deliv’rance,
we are sightless; lead us now.

God the unexpected infant,
God the calm, determined youth,
God the table turning prophet,
God the resurrected Truth:
you are present every moment,
we are searching; meet us now.

God the dresser of the vineyard,
God the planter of the wheat,
God the reaper of the harvest,
God the source of all we eat:
you are host at every table,
we are hungry; feed us now.

Obtained from Googling “Art and Community:”

Art is not only great for culture, education, communication between different cultures, or improving a creative skill, art also has healing power. Mental health is a major concern for young people. Artistic practice and creativity are definitely healthy activities, whether it is visual art or music.

Art binds. Culture generates social capital and strengthens a community character. Art brings people together physically — at galleries, museums, performance spaces — and culturally, through its capacity to tell a community shared story, to inspire reflection, and form connections that transcend differences.  Art gives us meaning and helps us understand our world. Scientific studies have proven that art appreciation improves our quality of life and makes us feel good. When we create art, we elevate our mood, we improve our ability to problem solve, and open our minds to new ideas.

Here’s what Google has to say about the Arts and Community

Art is not only great for culture, education, communication between different cultures, or improving a creative skill, art also has healing power. Mental health is a major concern for young people. Artistic practice and creativity are definitely healthy activities, whether it is visual art or music.

Art binds. Culture generates social capital and strengthens a community's character. Art brings people together physically — at galleries, museums, performance spaces — and culturally, through its capacity to tell a community's shared story, to inspire reflection, and form connections that transcend differences.

Art gives us meaning and helps us understand our world. Scientific studies have proven that art appreciation improves our quality of life and makes us feel good. When we create art, we elevate our mood, we improve our ability to problem solve, and open our minds to new ideas.

Wendell Pierce on Art and the Community

"Our thoughts are to the individual as art is to the community."

Wendell Pierce, Black actor and activist who recently played Willy Loman in “Death of a Salesman” on Broadway

Composing a Life, by Mary Catherine Bateson

published in 1989

Mary Catherine Bateson (December 8, 1939 – January 2, 2021) was an American writer and cultural anthropologistwho believed that life is an improvisational art form. From her Introduction to the book:

“I believe that our aesthetic sense, whether in works of art or in lives, has over-focused on the stubborn struggle toward a single goal rather than on the fluid, the protean, the improvisatory. We see achievements as purposeful and monolithic, like the sculpting of a massive tree trunk that has first to be brought from the forest and then shaped by long labor to assert the artist’s vision, rather than something crafted from odds and ends, like a patchwork quilt, and lovingly used to warm different nights and bodies.* Composing a life has a metaphorical relation to many different arts, including architecture and dance and cooking. In the visual arts, a variety of disparate elements may be arranged to form a simultaneous whole, just as we combine our simultaneous commitments. In the temporal arts, like music, a sequential diversity may be brought into harmony over time. In still other arts, such as homemaking or gardening, choreography or administration, complexity is woven in both space and time.”

*or like one of Stan Morgan’s collages, created from “found materials.”

We Are Made of Music, We Are Made of Time

In her 1942 book Philosophy in a New Key, the trailblazing philosopher Susanne Langer defined music as “a laboratory for feeling and time.” But perhaps it is the opposite, too — music may be the most beautiful experiment conducted in the laboratory of time.

In “the wordless beginning,” spacetime itself was crumpled and compacted into that spitball of everythingness we call the singularity. Even if sound could exist then — it did not, of course, because sound is made of matter — it would have existed all at once. Infinite numbers of every possible note would have been ringing at the same time — the antithesis of music. It is only because this single point of totality was stretched into a line that time was born and, suddenly, there was continuity. Suddenly, one moment became distinguishable from another — the strange gift of entropy, which makes it possible to have melody and rhythm, chords and harmonies. continue reading

Violinist Natalie Hodges on the Poetic Science of Sound and Feeling, from the Marginalian Newsletter by Maria Popova

Art is not Created in a Vacuum

From The Donald Edwards Quintet’s advertisement for a new CD, posted on August 20, 2021:

Timing is everything, and as Donald Edwards continues to make recordings, we are able to hear the clarity of his development as a composer and artist. The Color Of US Suite throws the door open to the levers of power and opportunity in rebellion against systems engaging in fundamentally inimical propositions against the humanity of Black people. Art is not created in a vacuum, it represents the culmination of the total breadth of one’s life experiences represented through a creative medium. It is a direct reflection of the tenor of the times in which it is created. So where talent meets preparation and discipline, at the cross roads these attributes come together for the best expression of artistic genius. Learning and knowing continues to be a hallmark of exceptional talent - the more you know, the more you can do. This recording carries with it the total range in expressions of the freedom concept, the obsession with hope through the infatuation of dreams - the disappointment, anger, and love for the framing of our evolving paradigm from within the prism of democracy.

Mural Dedication Celebrates Historical African American Steptoe neighborhood

 

 

Although most of the buildings in Midtown Kansas City’s African American Steptoe neighborhood have been demolished, the Westport Presbyterian Church has created a visual reminder to keep its memory alive. The church and several partners will officially dedicate a mural celebrating Steptoe’s Penn School during the Westport Art Fair, Sept. 9 at 6:30 p.m. at the Westport Presbyterian Church, 201 Westport Road, Kansas City, MO.

The dedication of the mural comes as numerous groups and individuals calling themselves “Steptoe Lives” are expressing concerns about Steptoe’s vanishing history on the heels of the demolition of several more of its homes. The Steptoe neighborhood centered around 43rd Street Terrace and Pennsylvania Avenue just south of Westport. After the Civil War, it became a unique place in Kansas City where former slaves could live and buy property. In June 2022, three more Steptoe buildings were demolished to make way for a surface parking lot and a few days later, another home was razed, creating new concern that the physical reminders of the area are being lost.

Mural celebrates Penn School
The mural was designed and painted by Stan Morgan with assistance from Jasmine Ali in collaboration with the Willow Woods Child Development Center. It depicts the three-room Penn School, which opened in 1868 as the first school for Black students west of the Mississippi.  Children in grades one through seven, including jazz great Charlie Parker, attended the school. It was closed in 1955.

Morgan says after he learned about the history of the school, he wanted to make sure other people could be introduced to its important history. As he conceived of the mural, he incorporated the silhouetted images of children into the artwork.

“We also want young people to be aware of the history that is fading,” Morgan says. “We invited children from the Willow Woods Day Care Center to lay down and we drew their silhouettes. Now you see them in the mural saluting Steptoe and the school.”

Mural Dedication Ceremony Kicks Off Drive for Steptoe Commemoration

On Friday, Sept, 9 at 6:30 p.m., during the Westport Art Fair, Westport Presbyterian Church will officially dedicate the mural. Artists Stan Morgan and Jasmine Ali will be on hand to sign the mural and children from the Willow Woods Day Care Center have been invited. Members of the Steptoe Lives coalition, including representatives of the St. James Missionary Baptist Church, the Plaza Westport neighborhood, the families of former Steptoe residents, and Historic Kansas City will also participate.

Following a brief dedication ceremony, those attending are invited inside to watch the documentary “A Step Above the Plaza: Celebrating One of Kansas City’s Most Historic African American Communities.” The film was created in 2007 by Rodney Thompson with support from St Luke’s Health System. It includes interviews with Steptoe residents who talk about the neighborhood, the St. Luke AME and St. James Missionary Baptist churches, Penn School, and other history.

Mural Dedication Ceremony

When: Sept. 9, 2022

  • Mural dedication: 6:30 p.m.
  • Showing of Documentary on Steptoe: 7 p.m.
  • Cost: Free
  • Where: The mural is located behind the Westport Presbyterian Church, 201 Westport Road on the wall of the Willow Woods Child Development Center. The easiest way to reach it is to go to the parking lot at Archibald and Central behind the church and walk toward the back door of the church. Look for signs for the mural dedication.

Kids Team Up For Art Story

The idea behind Kids Team Up For Art came from Brian Stanley Morgan, Kansas City artist and board member of the Westport Center for the Arts. At each workshop, children come together under the leadership of two trained artists to create both an individual art project they can take home, and a group collaborative project which often remains at the public library where it was created, to be displayed there. During the year when the Kansas City Public Library chose as its theme DREAM BIG, one collaborative project was to decorate huge foam core letters: D R E A M and B I G. Each letter was as tall as a child, and each was painted with bright colors and creative designs.

 

When the letters were all finished, the children admired their work, but one little girl wasn’t happy to hear that the letters would remain at the library. “But I want to take my letter home,” she said. “I want the E, because my name is Eve!” Eve learned that her letter was needed to complete the theme, and she could come to the library often and see her letter there. In this way she saw that her letter was an important part of the whole idea, and was needed to make the idea complete. KTUFA (Kids Team up for Art) and the other programs of Westport Center for the Arts emphasize that when the community creates art, the arts create community. Eve was part of a creative community making art!

Doug Talley Quartet Story

The Doug Talley Quartet first played for a Westport Center for the Arts Brown Bag Concert on the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday in the year 2001. The year before, the quartet had recorded Doug Talley’s composition Kansas City Suite, comprised of ten movements depicting landmarks in Kansas City: 1600 E 18th Street (The KC Jazz district), the City of Fountains, The Sleeping Child (statue on the Country Club Plaza), “The Buck Stops Here” in honor of President Harry Truman, Stockyard Blues (KC Strip), Basie and the Prez, Sky Stations, Plaza Lights, the Shuttlecocks, and Pendergast. The suite was recorded live in 2001, and the quartet performed it fifteen to twenty times over the years. They found, however, that people outside of the Kansas City Metro did not understand all the references to the various places, and the suite wasn’t often performed in its entirety.

 

The quartet was scheduled to play a Brown Bag Concert on the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday in 2012, but on December 29th, 2011, a catastrophic fire gutted the usual venue ~ Westport Presbyterian Church ~ and the quartet generously adjusted to a different venue with little notice. During the 4 ½ years of rebuilding the church, the quartet remained faithful to being part of the Brown Bag Concert Series, performing at Community Christian Church. They looked forward to returning to 201 Westport Road, and when asked to participate in the Westport Rising Concert Series in celebration of the rebuilt church, they happily agreed. On June 24th, 2016, the quartet performed the complete Kansas City Suite, with an eleventh movement which Doug Talley created for the occasion: Westport Rising.

 

After the performance, Doug told the President of WCA, Scott Myers, that it was a thrill to be able to play the complete Kansas City Suite for an appreciative audience. It’s clear that WCA provides an opportunity not only for audiences to enjoy good music, but for the performers themselves to enjoy playing works they don’t often get to do. The Doug Talley Quartet’s concert at noon on Dr. Martin Luther King’s Holiday, January 15th, 2018, will feature music by African-American jazz composers, and will be the 18th straight year the quartet has been an important part of the Brown Bag Concert Series. When the community creates art, the arts create community!

Brown Bag Concert Story

Marian Thomas, who founded and directed the noon-time Brown Bag Concert Series for 21 years, was a preschool music teacher for 32 years. She was convinced that very young children benefitted from hearing good live music, so she made the children of Willow Woods Child Development Center, housed next to the church where the concerts took place, feel welcome. One day as she shopped in Brookside, she heard her name being called: “Mrs. Thomas, I want you to know that my daughter, who’s now in middle school, still talks about going to the ‘Big Church’ to hear the wonderful music.” A memory was born in that little girl, a memory which stayed with her as a positive influence. The concerts, free to the public, are about creating beautiful memories and a sense of community. When the community creates art, the arts create community.

Arts Reflection Story

Marian McCaa Thomas

Each month on the Westport Center for the Arts web site an “arts reflection” is posted which aims to inspire those who create music, poetry, choreography, drama, visual art, or literature. A Kansas Citian friend of mine recently applied to become Executive Director of a national organization which encourages group singing in places of worship, as well as the composition of new words and music to be sung by those groups. She told me that on the plane flight to go for her final interview, she went to the WCA web site and read the “arts reflection” posts in preparation, to remind her of what matters most in furthering the creative arts. The interview went well, and she was hired for the position. Sometimes the pebbles we toss into the pond create ever-widening circles of the lively arts, and more communities are created.

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