Written by Brian Doyle in The Xian Century (editor of Portland Magazine)
I believe an artist has to remind herself or himself that when you write or paint or compose music, you draw in mysterious ways on the courtesy and genius of the community. It is this sensitivity to gifts welling up unbidden, this awareness of the fate of the community that divides art from commerce. The role of the artist, in part, is to develop the conversations, the stories, the drawings, the films, the music – the expressions of awe and wonder and mystery – that remind us, especially in our worst times, of what is still possible, of what we haven’t yet imagined. And it is by looking to one another, by attending to the responsibilities of maintaining good relations in whatever we do, that communities turn a gathering darkness into light.